If The Seas Catch Fire
by nericearren
Summary: In just two weeks, she fell in love with him. It was crazy, it was irrational, and it certainly wasn't how she planned to spend her summer-but Stephanie Brown has a way of following her heart, even if the seas catch fire. Besides, Damian can be extremely persuasive.
1. Night 1

Night 14

I tried to resist, or I thought I did. In the end, I couldn't stop myself from taking what was left of your innocence. I couldn't stop myself from smashing your trust on the ground like an unwanted toy. I know you don't feel that way, but it's the truth. I know you don't feel like you've been wronged-that's what makes this so much worse for me.

I love you.

I'm so sorry.

Night 1

"Give me the butter."

"Or else . . . ?"

Eleven-year-old Damian cocked his eyebrow at me, challenging. He was leaning on one elbow on the counter, watching me prepare a pot of macaroni and cheese. For _his_ lunch, I might add.

I sighed. "Just do it because you're a nice-scratch that, because _I'm_ a nice person who agreed to babysit you while both Bruce and Alfred had to be away from the Manor, so that _you_ would get to stay in your comfy little palace, waking up whenever you darn well please and getting lunch cooked for you at the snap of your fingers. And don't you think, in light of all of that, with me going out of my way to work _my_ busy schedule around _your_ whims, handing me a stick of butter is paltry recompense?"

Damian tilted his head at me, one eyebrow raised as he smirked and pointed to the pot of pasta, which had miraculously turned into macaroni-and-cheese while I gave my lecture. "Not _only_ did I just do your job for you," he said, in that drawling way he had that was calculated specifically to mock me, "but your argument made little if any sense-do you even know what 'paltry' or 'recompense' means? Not to mention your convoluted grammatical structures-"

I shoved the pot into his hands and stalked out of the kitchen, furious. Damian barely even yelped as the burning metal came into contact with his skin. He set the pot carefully back on the stovetop and slid off the counter to follow me, slipping in front of me as I walked. He held up his hands. "Some babysitter you are." he mocked. "I don't think you should be bragging about how you went out of your way for me, Brown, because _this,_" he waved his red palms for emphasis, "could actually be used to build a case against you in court. In fact, I think I'm going to go and call Child Protection Services-"

"Oh, shut up!" I grabbed his wrist and yanked him down the hall to the bathroom. "I doubt you count as a _child_. I am _so_ sick of you, Damian Wayne, you would not even _believe_-"

Damian smiled, his teeth white against his bronzed skin. He looked like a very short devil. "And it's only been an hour." he cooed in mock sympathy, and I started to really, truly regret what I'd gotten myself into.

It wasn't that I disliked Damian; he was a good kid, even if he had his moments of pure, unadulterated _brat_ every now and then. It was just that I was coming down from an extremely long, excruciatingly awful week, full of running around like Chicken Little and having not only my hands, but my feet, arms, and head full to the point of spilling over.

I was not in the mood to deal with an eleven-year-old on his period.

"Look," I said, as patiently as I could manage while applying salve on Damian's hands, "I'm not really thrilled about being here, and I know you want to make my life miserable because . . . I don't know, you're a messed up little duck-but, come on, kid. I _know_ you don't give Bruce this much trouble. And, you know, you want to stay here, and I want some peace of mind, so why don't we compromise-"

"I'm not giving you trouble." Damian lied innocently. He was perched on the sink, so that I could easily run his hand under the stream of cold water coming from the faucet, which put him above my eye level. Looking _up_ at Damian was proving disconcerting. I propped my hands on my hips. "Really." I said, skeptical.

Damian actually looked sulky. "What have I done that's been troublesome?" he asked. I rolled my eyes. "Well, you've been following me around since I got here, pester me with useless facts, correct me ceaselessly whenever I _dare_ say something that is either politically incorrect or against your views, _stare_ at me in some childish attempt to pysche me out, be of _no use whatsoever_ when I need actual help-do I have to go on?"

Damian looked at me. He just . . . looked. No expression, no smirk, not the faintest glimmer of evil in his dark brown eyes. "I . . . didn't know I was bothering you." he said, averting his eyes to the floor and speaking so softly, I could barely hear him. "I was . . . trying to be . . . I would like to be . . . friendly."

For a brief second, I didn't register. Then I saw the brief look of vulnerability flit over his face, and I understood.

Embarrassment flooded through me. "Oh, Damia-"

He abruptly got down, shoving into me, either accidentally because of his momentum, or on purpose because of his eagerness to get away from me. "I'm sorry I 'troubled you'." he said in a clipped tone. "I'll leave you alone from now on."

He didn't need to, but he slammed the door on his way out, just to get his point across.

I slumped to the floor, mentally berating myself. It didn't make me feel nearly bad enough, so I groaned out loud, banging my head repeatedly against the wooden cabinets.

"Stephanie Brown, could you be any _more_ obtuse?!"

It was around eight o'clock by the time I went looking for Damian. Bruce had specifically told me that Damian had to be in bed by eight, and though I had the sneaking suspicion that the youngest Wayne was hiding(and when he's hiding, no one can find him), I was determined to at least make a go of being a decent babysitter. Even if I wasn't. Even if I totally missed his trying to reach out to me. And made him feel like crap. And burned his hands. All on my first day.

Having no better place to start, I headed to Damian's room with trepidation. His room was in the same hall that mine was, but further down, and some time ago he'd painted the oak wood with a tar black paint that I thought maybe sixteen or seventeen layers of primer could conceal after he outgrew it. I knocked once, received no reply, and went for the doorknob. It was cool to the touch, and I hesitated for longer than a second before finally turning it, slowly and quietly, and stepping over the threshold.

It was pitch black inside, with only a faint trace of bluish light coming in from behind curtains and a shade over the sole window. Being July, the nights were coming later and later as the sun stayed out longer, but by eight the moon had appeared and the sun had gone, leaving only shadows to peek out from the edges of Damian's window. The faint light illuminated hulking dark shapes, things that no doubt made sense in the day, but in the dark caused his bedroom to appear as dangerous and scary as its owner.

"Damian?" I half-whispered. "You in here, buddy?" I winced. He didn't like derogatory nicknames. "Look, I get if you're mad at me." I said, venturing in as far as I dared without something to show me a path through the floor strewn with mysterious objects. "I acted kind of stupid, and I hurt your feelings. I'm sorry, but if you don't want to forgive me, well, whatever. But I'm here to do a job, see, and it's not for me, or you, but for your father-so if you could just show me that you're going to bed, following the rules; you don't even have to actually _go_ to bed, as far as I care. Just . . . work with me here, OK?" I felt silly, rambling on and on-and on and on. I felt sillier when Damian said, from behind me, "Are you _done_?"

"Damian!" I'm ashamed to say that I jumped. Even Bat-senses don't work on Damian; not unless you're being very quiet and expecting him. I whirled around, and he eased past me into his room. "I was just going to brush my teeth. Dental hygiene is important. I'm going to bed now." He recited the phrases mechanically, sounding more like a wind-up doll than a kid.

"No." I said, and he paused. "You just said-" he began.

"I'm answering your question." I interrupted. "No, I'm not done."

Damian folded his arms over his soft, black t-shirt, and looked at me. His expression was hidden in the liquid black that slid over his face when he turned to face me, and I found that not knowing what he was thinking, even just a whisper, unsettled me. The kid was already secretive enough.

He also had Superman pajama pants.

"Well, then?" Damian asked, softly, but not the same kind of soft he'd used in the bathroom. Then, he had sounded unguarded, just another sad, lonely kid-here, he sounded more like the snake from Rikki Tikki Tavi. Dangerous, and cunning.

"I-" I stalled. "I don't always understand you, Damian. You're a hard person to know."

"I'm getting old, here." he said, sounding like he was yawning impatiently. His stance shifted, almost imperceptibly. He was listening to me, no matter what he said.

"I make mistakes." I said, in a rush. "A lot; you know about the majority of them, you're there . . . I mean to say," I sigh, "no one's perfect. This family, least of all. We all trudge along on our merry little ways, and we only notice other people's feelings-most of us, anyway-when we bump into them, and bruise them and ourselves. Everybody's just circling around in the dark and sometimes we can't help but crash into each other. You and I, we had a misunderstanding. It happens, Damian, you have to realize that. It happens, and people get hurt, but you have to keep going. You can't hide in your room, or from the other person. It you meant one thing, and they-and _I_ thought it was another . . . well, you need to rectify that. And I apologize."

"Look at you, using big words again." he sneered, and I breathed a sigh of relief. Damian was back to his usual self.

He was next to me in an instant, one hand on my elbow, guiding me to the door. "I think I've had enough of the nightly Devotional, Pastor Brown. I'll be sure to keep Christmas in my heart year-round. Now, good night." He said the last two words firmly, shutting the door in my face as he did so.

And then, when I'd turned away, intending to walk back to my room, I heard him say, waaaay to quietly for it to have been meant for my ears, "Thank you."


	2. Night 2

Night 2

"OhcrapI'mscrewed!" I sat upright in bed, distantly hearing the sound of music playing; that of my alarm, which had been going off for at least ten minutes. I'd slept right through the songs intended to wake me up, too tired from the day before to comprehend that if I didn't get up, there was a good chance I'd be late for work.

I slammed the OFF button on the clock and rolled out of bed, feeling my hair matted damp to my head from the humidity, already nigh on unbearable, and knowing that I wouldn't have time to shower. I quickly dressed and threw my hair back in a ponytail, then dashed out of my room to the bathroom, where I washed my face and brushed my teeth. If I skipped breakfast, I estimated I could make it to my drudge fast-food job in time; halfway out the door, I remembered Damian.

"Damian!" I hollered. "Get out here!" I had no doubt he was awake; I just hoped he remembered what I told him yesterday. Damian dropped down from the ceiling above the TV, cocking his head at me. He was in full Robin regalia. I rolled my eyes, temporarily defeated, and sagged against the door frame. "Oh, Damian! Come _on_! Go change! Quickly! I have work!"

"Overslept, did we?" he quipped, and was gone before I could reply. He was back in less than two minutes, this time in chinos and a polo shirt, and by then I was so frazzled, I didn't bother to scold him on his Bruce-Wayne-esque wardrobe.

I drove like a maniac, as Damian was quick to point out, to the place where I'd arranged some . . . "entertainment" . . . for him while I was working. I carefully didn't look at his face when I pulled into the daycare. There was a moment of stillness in the middle of my panicked morning.

"What," Damian said slowly, "is this?"

I spoke rapidly. "Colin's volunteering here for the summer. I pulled some strings, talked to some idiots, and the short story is that you'll be helping out here when I have to work. It's all sorted. Now-get out, I'm late. And have fun. And _don't leave_!" I added threateningly, not trusting him to run back to Wayne Manor once I was gone. "I'll be back in about six hours." More like eight, but I didn't want to totally crush him.

"What if the building catches on fire? May I leave then?" Damian asked, and I all but shoved him from the car, driving off before he'd fully closed the door. "Use your brain!"

He stared after me as I motored off, but I didn't have the time to make sure he properly went inside and registered. Damian was a smart boy, I told myself. He really didn't even need a babysitter. So he'd be fine. He would be fine without me.

But, if that was true, why did I feel like I'd just abandoned my baby to wolves?

I pushed the thoughts aside and the pedal to the metal, and got to work-McDonald's, minimum wage, the ultimate Job From Hell for a person like me-just in time, though that didn't stop the shift leader from yelling at me as I donned my uniform and silently resigned myself to smelling fried food(and like fried food)for the rest of the day.

Don't get me wrong; I was glad to have a job. I even liked-sort of-my coworkers, and my boss was okay as long as I kept on her good side. What I _didn't_ like was the hours it consumed, hours that I could be patrolling or eating or making relationships or studying for my GED; I didn't like the hot, sweat-inducing kitchens, though the equally hot guys that worked there were a plus. I hated the rush, the cranky people, and how I was always on my feet. I hated being treated like I was an idiot, just because I worked at a McDonald's-though it was just a testament to how sucky my life was that prejudice was just something I'd grown used to. Pregnant at fifteen, high school dropout; people liked to think they knew my story by heart. And maybe they did, if it wasn't for the Batgirl part. Being Spoiler-Batgirl-even Robin-putting on that mask, doing some good in lives that I _could_ control-that had saved my life.

Ten hours later, four hours longer than I'd been scheduled to work, I clocked out, finally, dead on my feet and not sure I could survive the drive back to Wayne Manor without falling asleep from the sheer relief of sitting down. I hung up my hat and apron and was out the door in seconds, leaving to pick up Damian at the daycare.

He was standing in the exact same spot that I'd left him, only he was wearing a foam visor with animal ears of some kind glued on to it in a haphazard way; one of the purple ears was crooked, and the other looked about to fall off. In his hands was a stack of papers, and he climbed into the car with a very disgruntled expression on his face. I, on the other hand, smiled just at seeing him. I couldn't explain it-maybe it was just that, after my awful day, it was good to see a familiar face.

"Aww, Dami, you look so cu-" I started to coo.

"Don't. Say. It." he snapped, ruffling the papers so that the edges matched up. Neat freak. I started the car and pulled out of the daycare driveway. "I take it you had fun." I said, amused, and he growled in response.

It was so freaking adorable, I had to laugh.

"Did you and Colin have fun with the little kids?" I asked impishly.

Silence.

"They made me do arts and crafts." Damian said at last, taking the visor off of his head.

"Did you make that?" I asked, intrigued despite my teasing.

"Colin did. We traded." There was an odd note in Damian's voice-wonder. "He said that is common for children to do." Pause. "I don't understand why."

I was tired, had a headache, and, frankly, felt like a living zombie-but I still wanted to hug the life out of Damian. He wasn't being annoying, for one thing. And his quietness was unnerving me. He hadn't threatened me with disembodiment even once, and I'd been the one to consign him to the dreadful company of his peers. He hadn't said a word about my monumental lateness. He hadn't even complained about having to wait outside the daycare in a ridiculous hat for what had to have been at least two hours.

"It's so that-" I stumbled over the words. I could remember trading things when I was a kid, but I, too, couldn't remember why. It was just something we _did_. Maybe it was greed, or grass-is-greener-on-the-other-side syndrome, or just a way to prove that we were friends. But I didn't want to give any of those reasons to Damian, who scoffed enough at human as it was. "So that it's fair." I said finally. "Sharing. That kind of thing. So that friends can have pieces of each other." That wasn't much better, but I was tired and not thinking straight.

". . . pieces?" Damian mumbled.

"Bad choice of words." I said rapidly.

"My mother wanted pieces of me." Damian said thoughtfully, looking out the window. "Bruce did, and Dick, and you." He looked down at the hat in his hands. "Colin is the first person to give anything back."

I had nothing to say to that. It was too close to the truth. Instead, I changed the subject. "What did your hat look like?"

He gave me a look, like it should be obvious. "A bat." Well. I guess that was. I tried for another subject change. "So-are you going to patrol with Tim tonight?"

"If I have to spend any more time in the company of that genitalless, spineless, useless pile of skin cells and bone marrow, I will tear my eyelids out. And then gouge out my eyeballs. And then, I will come and kill you."

There was the death threat.

"Hey! Why me? I didn't do anything!" I protested.

"I will come and kill you," he continued. "And videotape it for Drake to see. I will show him the tape, and then I will kill him. That is how you are involved. Satisfied?"

His speech had fallen back into a formal pattern, the kind he'd used when I first met him. I thought of it as his Assassin Killing Voice, but that was just me. Maybe there was no difference. "None of the gory stuff, please." I said briskly. "Not in my car." My very bones were aching; I'd never been so glad to see Wayne Manor pull into sight. I parked crookedly in the driveway and slid out, not even bothering to lock my car. Damian did it for me; kindness, maybe, but more likely because he thought I'd demand restitution from his family if my car was jacked on his property.

To my surprise, when he came around the car, he slipped his arm around my waist and half-dragged, half-carried me up the stairs to the door. "Damian!" I protested, as my sore feet stumbled over the steps. I was too exhausted to go as fast as he was; but too exhausted to protest, either.

"I'm hungry." he said shortly, unlocking the door and releasing me. I felt my whole body wilt with the thought that I'd have to cook yet another person's meal. "We had pizza this afternoon." he said, just as abruptly. "Colin said that you can call and have it delivered, right to your door."

I stared at him.

"My treat, of course." he added, seeing my look. "And I get to pick the toppings."

"Are you offering to buy me dinner?" I asked, mildly offended and majorly stupified.

"And myself." he said, mirroring my tone. "Unless you feel like cooking . . .?"

"No." I said, too quickly, and Damian almost smiled. At least, one corner of his mouth tilted slightly upwards and he looked at me without his eyebrows bunching into a scowl. I got him the phone book and showed him how to look up a number(earning a derisive, "I'm not an _idiot_, Brown." for my very own). We called the nearest pizza joint we could find, which was still pretty far away, given Wayne Manor's remoteish location, and Damian ordered a large with pepperoni, sausage, and rat meat, like a natural-except for the rat part, I mean. That was almost a disaster, as the person on the other end thought he was pranking them. Fortunately, someone must have recognized the number as "that weirdo Wayne family", because they ended up taking it in stride. We got bacon instead.

We were told that it would take about thirty minutes for the pizza to be delivered, which left Damian and I sitting around waiting and staring awkwardly at each other. Well; actually, I was dozing off, and Damian was, unsurprisingly, impervious to awkward situations, but still.  
There was a small part of my brain that wanted to do _something_. I knew that Damian had been trying in his own way to reach out, and I owed him for the pizza, so I roused my aching self and said, as brightly as I could, "You know what goes great with pizza?"

He looked at me blankly. Of course he didn't know. If anyone ever guessed something that went on in my brain, I would be genuinely shocked. No one ever seemed to think in the same way that I did.

"Movie night!" I cried, leaping up . . . well, okay, more like getting up very, very slowly, like an old lady would, or after a particularly hard training session with Bruce, and heading into the enormous living room.

"The couch is genuine leather." Damian seemed to follow my idea enough to poke holes in it. "We can't eat on it."

"We won't be eating on the _couch_." I said in a "no-duh" voice. "We'll be eating on _plates_. Besides, it's not like Bruce will care."

Damian mumbled something that was probably obscene.

I headed to the glass cabinet of movies underneath the large, flatscreen TV, and picked one at random. "Come on, Dami, this is something you have to do at least once while you're a kid. It's a requirement. Or something." I looked at the DVD I'd selected.

_Saving Private Ryan._

Hmm. Not the most kid-friendly. I picked the one next to it.

_The Terminator_.

With a growing sense of dread, I worked my way down the shelf of movies and to the next one. They were all R or NC-17 rated, alternating between violence and gratuitous sex; the kind of movies millionaire playboy Bruce Wayne would have in his just-for-show collection. "Crap." I muttered. "Should've stopped at a Redbox."

Damian crouched next to me. "I could always cover your ears and eyes during the adult parts." he suggested, and I took a swipe at him, fairly sure he was making a joke. "These aren't appropriate for _you_, numbskull!" I said.

"You are right, of course." Damian said dryly. "Much too much violence for my delicate psyche. Wouldn't want to expose a child to such horror as maiming and killing, not to mention blood." The sarcasm was obvious, even for him.

"Well . . . in light of that . . . I guess this one's OK." I picked one of the least awful movies on the shelf, an older one from the days when R meant purplely blood and using the word "damn" when not making a sermon in church. _Demolition Man_. Sounded kind of like Damian to me, but I kept that to myself as I popped the DVD into the player and started the movie.

I fell asleep pretty much immediately, and when I woke up, Damian, in his pjs, was polishing off what looked like his fifth slice of pizza. He was sitting on the floor by my feet and staring at the movie with wide, vacant eyes like a proper eleven-year-old boy. I remember distantly thinking that he had better have tipped the pizza boy alright, or he'd have hell to pay on behalf of us minimum-wagers.

"Hey." I mumbled fuzzily, and, without looking, he pushed the pizza box towards me. "That's your half." he said. I took a piece, sliding onto the floor next to him, and starting paying attention to the movie. Onscreen, one guy stabbed another with a knife and _ripped_ upwards until he got to the guy's throat.

I lost my appetite.

"This isn't Demolition Man."

"That movie ended thirty-six minutes ago. You were asleep, so I assumed it was my turn to pick a movie."

I didn't ask what this one was; I didn't want to know. "I think I'm going to go change . . . and maybe throw up." I said, uncertainly. Damian didn't tear his eyes from the screen once. I was sure that this was going to have some lasting damage that he would someday blame me for.

I took my pizza slice with me as I headed to my room to change into comfortable pj pants and settle my roiling stomach. I wasn't drop-dead tired anymore, and my headache was gone, but I nevertheless just wanted to go to bed. However, I wasn't about to leave Damian alone with the DVD player. After washing my face clean of sleepies and washing my hair over the side of the bathtub, I wrapped my head in a towel and headed back into the living room, feeling a whole lot fresher, especially now that the day was cooling off. Whatever slasher movie Damian was watching was coming to its climax; lots of blood, guts, and gore, to the point where I barely even flinched when a man was decapitated in the middle of the screen.

I finished my second piece of pizza and started on my third, as the movie wound down to the comparatively gentle murder-suicide of the last two characters. Credits started to roll, and I scrambled to beat Damian to the player. "It's my turn to pick!" I said, and realized I sounded like a little kid squabbling with her brother. Damian acquiesced without a fight. I picked at random, figuring nothing could be worse that the movie we'd just watched, and started laughing when I saw the title; _Night Of The Living Dead_. I had great memories of watching it with my dad when I was younger, and he wasn't spending his nights running a crime circuit.

"Ohmygosh-This is a _classic_! We _have_ to watch it!" I drummed my hands on the ground. I was no longer a kid, but the excitement I still felt was real. There was no way I could let Damian go another second without seeing it; I would be failing in my role as a babysitter.

"I don't see the gun pointed at our heads." Damian said, reaching for a slice from my half of the pizza. I slapped his hand away. "You ate your half!" I scolded, and popped the DVD in the player.

Three-maybe four-movies later, and Damian was zonked out on my shoulder. I was still-sort of-watching the current movie(Slasher Fun 2? Mega Chainsaw Massacre? No idea-it was Damian's choice)through half-closed eyes, making my way towards sleep. Even the gratuitous screams of the scantily-clad girls onscreen were not enough to shake me from my drowsiness. Damian's breath was warm on my bare shoulder, and I became focused on the pattern; warmth as he exhaled, then fading to cold, then warm again as he exhaled once more. My cheek resting on his curly head of dark brown hair, I fell asleep.


	3. Night 3

Night 3

When we woke up, it was Sunday, which meant that even I, scheduled up the ying-yang as I was, didn't have to work. My tailbone hurt from being pressed against a hardwood floor all night, my butt was numb, and my neck was cramped from being tilted for so long. The sun streaming through the large windows on either side of the living room at four-thirty in the morning did nothing to improve my temper. Damian and I looked at each other, and, in harmony for once, shuffled down the hallway to our respective bedrooms.

Damian hovered in my door for a second, watching me flop onto my bed, which was still in disarray from my hasty start the previous morning. He was sleepy-eyed and looked small, his personality dampered by a long day and equally long night. For a moment, I thought he would curl up next to me-he looked like he wanted to-but instead, he just said, "We need to patrol at noon. I arranged it with Drake.", and left. I fell back asleep, not bothering to try and analyze the part of me that had wanted him to curl up next to me, too.

I stumbled out of bed and into the shower around nine, not at all surprised to find that Damian had already been there and was no doubt in the Bat Cave right then, going through his morning training session. I dressed and went down, and, sure enough, he was performing a series of complicated flips and jumps, showing off, demolishing a series of creatively placed sandbags. The Jungle Gym, as I'd dubbed it, was Damian's baby; a large room that was full to the ceiling with metal, wood, cement, and steel structures, all designed to keep Damian busy in whatever way he came up with at the time. Today, apparently, was Take-Out-The-Bad-Guys practice. He vaulted over a cement blockade suspended by wires over ten feet above my head, caught hold of the top of a large wooden swingset, and used his momentum to cannonball himself into the side of a sandbag resting on a larger-than-life ball of steel wool. I kid you not.

The bag burst apart, showering sand all over the place. I'm sad to say, about 78% of it seemed to migrate to my hair, which was having a good deal of trouble staying clean those days. "Damian!" I shrieked, rightly outraged. Damian sprang off of the wool ball, slid down a pole designed to prop up a monster set of monkey bars, and flipped off of the low platform it rested on to land, in a crouch, at my feet.

"I just added that." he said, with some degree of pride, pointing at the monkey bars.

"Frankly, I'm scared to come in here." I replied. "Do you want breakfast, or no?"

Without replying, he started for the door, and I followed him out of the Cave and up into the kitchen. It was strange to enter the kitchen and not see Alfred there, whipping up a batch of eggs or some waffles(yum)for breakfast, which is really the only time we went into the kitchen. Not having Alfred around made me realize just how spoiled I was, in regards to the Manor; not only did I expect to be fed, but I also expected to have my food brought to me. Kind of like living with my mom, actually.

"Sooo-" I started rummaging through the cupboards. "Since I doubt Bruce would approve of us having leftover pizza and mac'n'cheese for breakfast, what do you want, Dami?"

No reply.

"Dami?" I turned around. He was rifling through something-mail?-and frowning. Damian didn't usually take an interest in mail. "Dami-Dami-Damian! Earth to Planet Assassin!" I sang out, and he blinked and looked up at me, his face blank. "What?" His tone was almost innocent.

"I asked what you wanted for breakfast." I prodded, a little annoyed by his lack of attention. It was seriously irritating, for a guy who wouldn't leave me alone just the past day.

"Anything's fine." Damian returned his gaze to the papers in his hand, and I propped my hands on my hips, suspicious. Damian Wayne, not speaking in full sentences? Not to mention passing up an opportunity to boss me around, make me feel inferior, and probably throw in a jibe about my cooking skills? Unusual, at best. "Okay, I was going to be the good babysitter, but I'll ask." I declared. "What on Earth are you looking at?"

Damian threw the entire stack in the trash, and made as if he was washing his hands of it. "Nothing." he said, in that almost-innocent tone. "It's simply a load of junk mail. I'm continually fascinated by the amount of money that companies throw into silly pamphlets and catalogs that no one ever looks at."

I brushed past him and fished the papers out of the stack. "NO!" Damian actually lost his cool, lunging at me; too late. I had already seen the logo on the top of the first page.

"These are the papers you had in the car yesterday!" I cried triumphantly, satisfied with my detective work, and grabbed the stack.

"Put them back." Damian demanded, still trying to take them from me. I dodged him while reading as much as I could, as fast as I could, with an eleven-year-old trying to body-slam me.

His ninja skills outclassed mine, and we ended up in a heap on the floor. I hit my head, and from the sound of it, Damian cracked his knee pretty badly, his not-quite-healed hands giving way as gravity took over. For a second, we lay on the floor, catching our breath.

"I would have just signed the forms." I said. "You didn't have to throw them in the trash."

"They weren't important." he said stiffly. His head was on my stomach, one of his thighs tangled around my leg. He tried to get up just as I flipped onto my side, and I accidentally kneed him in the stomach. He winced. "Sorry." I said automatically, and, gracelessly, we managed to get to our feet.

Damian stooped down and picked up the papers-consent forms for volunteering, a field trip, and a group trip at the end of the year. He went as if to throw them away again. I grabbed his wrist. "Damian,"

"I don't even want to go." he said stiffly. "I'm perfectly fine with staying at Wayne Manor by myself during the day. No one asked you to find me-"

I put my arm over his shoulders, squeezing him to me for a second. "Geez, you can be so _stupid_ sometimes. If you want something, just ask."

Damian wriggled away, not meeting my eyes. "I don't want-" he started, but stopped. "It doesn't matter. Bruce is not here to sign."

I pulled the papers out of his hands, rummaged in the nearest drawer for a pen, and signed all three forms as quickly as I could, before he tried to tackle me again. "Technically, I'm your guardian for the next two weeks." I said. "So, technically, my permission is as good as Bruce's." Technically. Not really. But I'd learned that if you say something with enough bluster, it becomes believable.

Damian looked at me.

"See?" I asked brightly. "Big deal about nothing. Now what do you want for breakfast?" I stuffed the papers into his hands and turned back to the cupboards. "Maybe we should get you a backpack." I mused, then found the Bisquik mix and thought nothing more about it. I didn't notice, back then, Damian watching me, his dark eyes almost black under the weight of whatever was on his mind. I didn't see him rub his arms, as if remembering my touch.

At noon, Damian and I went on patrol, but other than a minor purse snatcher, nothing happened. The afternoon went quietly. Damian went back to doing his Damian thing, and I did mundane stuff like check my Facebook and dust shelves. I felt like I should be doing something more meaningful with my day off, but I couldn't think what. Usually my Sundays were spent visiting my mother, who worried incessantly about my living on my own, but I didn't want to leave Damian to his own devices, and I didn't want to have to drag a complaining eleven-year-old across Gotham for an hour-and-a-half visit. I called her, instead, something I got heck for, and then sat back twiddling my thumbs. Finally I gave in to curiosity and went in search of Damian.

He was playing a video game.

"I think we have to talk about this addiction to gore that you have." I said, sitting down next to him. "Leave me alone." he said. You just had to admire our beautiful relationship.

"No way. I love video games-what are we playing?"

He ignored me.

"Come on, D. I was super-good, back in the day." Could I sound any more ancient?

Nothing.

"I bet I could beat you." That did it.

He threw a controller at me, which I just barely caught. "I bet that you couldn't." was all he said, and we began. I had to keep myself from grinning-Damian couldn't resist a challenge of any kind.

Technically, the game was one of those capture-the-flag kind using guns, but all Damian and I were going after were each other. Our teammates yelled obscenities at us as we blatantly ignored the game being played and shot round after round of bullets at one another. Then we switched to wrestling; then cage fighting; then tennis.

After our sixth game of tennis, Damian threw down the controller and lunged at me. Startled, I caught him by the shoulders and flipped him over my head, somersaulting backwards to soak up his momentum and spring to my feet. He slammed into my back, and I met the carpet with a _thud_ that would definitely leave burns.

"Okay, okay-uncle!" I shouted as best I could with a mouthful of rug.

"Why are you so good?" Damian hissed. I assumed he meant at the video games; in real-life fighting, I was practically dead right then. "It's a teenager thing." I mumbled. "Now let me up!"

For a second, I thought he wouldn't, and the pressure on my back-his full weight-was unbearable; but, I was shocked to find, not totally unwelcome. Because as his hot breath hit my ear, his body pressing down on mine, I felt a tremor go through my whole body-pleasure.

Damian's weight disappeared and I got up, gasping for breath and sanity. I thought that I must be more lonely than I'd realized, that an eleven-year-old's presence would-briefly-turn me on.

"It's time for supper." Damian announced, and I shook the incident from my head and ventured back into the kitchen.


	4. Night 4-Part 1

Night 4

Monday mornings-the bane of every existence above the age of ten; except, perhaps, Damian, who was up bright and early, serenading the household with the sounds of his metal-cutting chainsaw, welding torch, and power sander.

"Damian! What the bleep is going on?!" I hollered at him, still in my pajamas, as I made my way to his gym around four in the morning. It felt like we'd barely gotten back from our nighttime patrol-he couldn't have gotten more than two hours of sleep. Meaning _I_ couldn't have gotten more than two hours of sleep. Meaning heads were going to roll soon, if the end of the world wasn't at stake.

Damian took his sweet time stopping the machine, making sure his . . . whatever it was . . . was just right before unplugging the welder and removing his heavy metal face guard. He covered his creation with a tarp and then, finally, turned to look at me, face a picture of innocence. "Is something the matter?"

"Yes," I seethed. "Yes, something _is_. Why are you making so much goosefeathering _noise_ at four in the morning?!"

"Speaking in technical terms, it's actually closer to four-fifteen."

"IRRELEVANT!" I bellowed.

He gave me a dour look. "You're hindering science. I happen to work best in early hours."

"And I happen to _sleep_ best in early hours!" I nearly shrieked. "Especially when I'm working an early shift that day!"

Damian stared at me for a second. "At least you aren't in danger of being late this time." he said eventually.

I had to fight the urge to strangle him. "Wh-you-ugh-" I bit my lip, suffocating the part of my brain that wanted to drop-kick the stupid kid to Alaska. "Do you always make this much racket this early?"

"It never bothered Bruce."

Of course it didn't. Damian's old man probably got up at _three_.

"Dick surely didn't put up with it." I tried.

"He was often out all night."

_ Nooooooot_ surprising.

I rubbed my forehead, somehow knowing that I wasn't going to get anywhere with this conversation. "We're leaving at seven thirty. Be ready for then, okay?" I didn't wait for an answer, just plodded up the stairs and back to my room. I lay back on my bed, but it had gotten cold and I was wide awake; soon after I got back, Damian started up with the torch again. It had been only four days since I'd taken Damian on, and already I was prepared to kill him-or myself.

My computer was flashing; email alert. I sat up and reluctantly opened it, figuring it wasn't like I was going to get any sleeping done.

_ Yo, Steph!_

_ Already emailed Damian, like, a hundred times, but he's ignoring me. Haha. Anyway, hoping you're doing okay-he's quite a handful, isn't he? Ha! Things on this end are going fine; I should be back sooner rather than later, so expect me this Saturday or Sunday. No more babysitting for you, yay! Bruce contacted me about the situation in Mm-Bali, and he and Cass are expecting long delays in their trip. I'll be driving in from Bludhaven soon to take over D-watching, but that means you'll have to swing over there a night or two in return. Hold the fort down until I get there-but _don't_ go on any more midnight walks. Bruce says it's too dangerous. I'll explain more when I get back._

_ About Damian. Don't let him convince you that he's made out of steel. His weaknesses are there, if you just look. He thinks that he doesn't need anybody, and Bruce lets him think that he doesn't need anybody, which is why it's our job, you and I, to teach him otherwise. There's a lot about Damian that you must find hard to understand-why he seems so detached from the universe at large, why he never just says what he means, why you have to guess at his every word-but that's because you've never been anything but an open, bright person. Just you being around him, I think, is good; so don't stop being around him. Keep making sure he has no choice but to open up to you. I know-absolutely-that you can save him._

_ Better go now-try not to kill each other before I get there-_

_best regards,_

_ DG_

That was trademark Dick; reading my mind. Like he knew what was going to bother me before I even was bothered. I deleted the email(standard procedure for those of us who are as paranoid as mad scientists)and flopped down onto my bed, staring at the ceiling. The torch was a distant whine in my ears. _I know that you can save him_. From what? Damian wasn't in any danger, as far as I could see, but I could almost hear the urgency in Dick's tone as he conveyed the words to me. In fact, the whole email was full of alarming statements. _He and Cass are expecting long delays . . . don't go on anymore midnight walks . . . he thinks he doesn't need anybody . . . it's our job, you and I, to teach him otherwise . . . I know-absolutely-that you can save him._ Bruce and Cass were caught up in some trouble in Mm-Bali; for some reason Bruce was ordering a stop to patrols in Gotham, and Dick seemed to believe that Damian was on the cusp of something, something that only Dick and I could change his mind about.

After a few seconds' consideration, I shot Dick a reply, though I knew he hated being replied to. Too many threads to track. He changed his public email address every other week.

_D-_

_Permission to move operation to inner Gotham?_

_ -S_

I got a reply in seconds, short and to the point.

_Go. Now. Then stay put._

Great. And I had work in three hours.

"Damian!" I hollered, during a break in the screeching. I was packing my duffel bag already. "Get up here!"

He appeared in seconds, not even winded, his expression slightly annoyed until he saw me. "What are you doing?"

"Packing. You, too. Get enough stuff to last you until Saturday. I just got an email from Dick; we have to get out of here."

Of course, he had to go and ask the logical question. "Why?"

"Because I'm the babysitter and I said so!" I snapped. Just because he asked a logical question didn't mean I had to give a logical answer. "And don't bring any power tools!"

As far as any technology and know-how I had could tell, we weren't in any immediate danger-but that didn't mean it took longer than six minutes for Damian and I to be packed and getting the heck outta of Dodge. . . um,Wayne Manor. We crammed ourselves and our necessities(which, sadly, did include at least one electric screwdriver that I could detect, and probably about eight other nefarious hardware items that I could not)in my beat-up Camero in less time than it normally took us to get dressed in the morning, and before the sun had even risen we were pulling into the parking garage opposite the four-story brownstone that I had grown up in with my mom.

"No place like home." I muttered as I pulled my duffel bag out of the trunk of the car, having given up convincing Damian that he could survive six days without half of his jungle gym.

"You don't sound happy." Damian observed, locking the doors and then checking something on his handheld computer. He traveled with more gadgets than Khloe Kardashian did clothes.

"I'm _not_ happy." I replied. "My mother warned me that I'd be back here within the year, and I hate to prove her right."

"It's an emergency."

"That won't matter. Trust me. Somehow or other," I grunted as I lifted one of Damian's three mysterious black bags, "it's going to be my fault that we're in danger. Maybe the way I dress or something."

"The way you . . . dress?" Damian sounded wary, as if he didn't actually want to know what was wrong with how I dressed.

"It's a mom thing. Trust me." I started out of the parking garage.

"As my mother was more likely to criticize how slowly I killed a man, I will have to." Damian said, matter-of-factly. I chose not to respond to that statement, mainly because there was simply no diplomatic way to condemn his mother as a psychopathic egomaniac.

Oh, sure, I know we all make choices-and I'm surely not in the running for Mother Of The Year Award, either-but something about Talia a'Ghul just rubbed me the wrong way. It's hard to forgive somebody who brought up their child to hate you, you know? It's kind of like a personal insult. And besides, even if it was really Damian's grandfather's fault, well, she was his mother, wasn't she? It was her job to make sure he grew up well.

"Well" does not include the pathological need to carry power tools with you in an overnight bag, not to mention the fact that I was sure he was armed with enough sharp and pointy things to conquer a small Arab nation, which, incidentally, he probably used to do before breakfast, at the age when most children were playing tea party with their stuffed elephants and dreaming about being Batman. Damian, on the other hand, was more focused on actually _being_ Batman.

I rang the doorbell with reluctance, half-hoping that Mom was out and I could check us into a hotel or something, but, no, she opened the door right away and practically jumped out of her skin with excitement. Don't ask me how she was already up and dressed before five in the morning-I couldn't tell you. Mom Sense, or something.

"Stephanie! Come right in! I had a feeling you would drop by!" Well, there you go. "I just _knew_ you wouldn't miss a visit to your old mom, now would you? I brought you up to be a much nicer girl than that-and, oh, you're staying!" It was hard to begrudge Mom the happy look on her face. Since Dad kicked it, she'd been pretty much on her own, because by then I was jumping around Gotham with a flying rodent on my chest(a picture of a flying rodent, not an actual flying rodent-eew). I'd felt really bad when I moved out, but I figured she was a human being, right? Capable of seeking out companionship if she needed it? Still, it must have been lonely, because she didn't even ask about the Duffel Bags Of Doom. She just lit up like a Christmas tree when she saw Damian-another Mom thing, the instant love of any minor who they can compare to their own child.

"Who's this?"

"Damian, Mom. You remember-Bruce's kid?"

" . . . Bruce?" Darling scatterbrained Mom.

"Yeah. Bruuuuuuce. Bruce Wayne, guy I work for? Adoptive father of my ex-_boyfriend_?"

"Rick?"

"No! Tim! Remember him? The kid of that man who died in that accident?" Well . . . it wasn't really an accident . . . but let's _not_ go there. "Bruce adopted him, and . . . y'know . . . we _worked_ together . . ."

Comprehension dawned on Mom's face. "You mean-this is-_Robin_?" she whispered the last word, as if spy cameras were tucked in the corners of the room. Damian made a face. "She knows my secret identity. Brown, why does she know my secret identity?"

"Because she's not totally stupid!" I snapped at him. Okay, I was still a little miffed about being woken up so early.

Mom looked shocked. "_Stephanie_. Don't yell at him! Yelling is counterproductive to a child's growth!"

"You yelled at me enough." I mumbled sulkily, left behind as Mom shepherded Damian into the kitchen for some hot chocolate and waffles. I felt very much the abandoned child.

"She used to make _me_ waffles." I whispered to Damian as we sat down to eat. "All through my pregnancy."

He scowled. "I'm about to eat. I do _not_ want to hear this."

"All I'm saying is, you're not special, Baby Bop. Don't go thinking you're special. She's _my_ mom."

"You are childish." As if that summed up my every problem, he began eating. And if anybody can eat in a snotty way, it's Damian. Just watching him annoyed me, so I switched my attention to my mom, who was fussing around in the kitchen like it would kill her to sit down.  
"Mom. Have some breakfast." I invited.

"I'm fine." she waved a hand. "I was just thinking where I'll put you two."

"I'll sleep on the couch." Damian immediately offered-_very_ generously. Too generous for even waffles to have produced; I was instantly suspicious.

"_I'll_ take the couch." I said. "And you'll be in my room, where I can keep an eye on you."

"Ever heard of reverse psychology, Stephanie?" Damian asked innocently. "Maybe I just wanted you to put me in your room because it has an easier exit-as you would well know."

"Ever heard of reverse-reverse psychology?" I countered. "You're just trying to freak me out."

"That," Damian said with dignity, "doesn't make any sense." He speared a waffle and took a bite, holding it like some kind of food-on-a-stick.

"Seriously, Mom, sit down-you're making me nervous." I pleaded. Mom sat, but she fiddled with the placemat and napkins; folding, smoothing, unfolding, and generally fidgeting in a way that made it clear that she thought she should be doing something more important. "We shouldn't be long." I said, trying to break the tension. "A few days, at most. Just until Dami's brother gets back in town." I omitted the part about us being in danger-I didn't want Mom to worry more than she already did. Damian, however, had no objections.

"Once he's here, we'll crush our enemies like cockroaches." he promised. "No one can stand against us once we turn and fight." He looked at me. "I think we could take them on. This running and hiding doesn't sit well with me."

Mom turned pale. "Enemies? Stephanie, what's he talking about?"

"Nothing." I said quickly. "Seriously, nothing. There's no danger-"

"Why'd you make us leave then? Didn't Dick tell you-"

I stomped on Damian's foot. "We're going to get some air. Thanks for breakfast, Mom." I pulled at Damian's sweatshirt until he got up and followed me out of the room, and then the apartment. Once we were out the back door, onto the fire escape, I whirled on him.

"What the hell was that for?! God, Damian, will you be socially adept for just _once_ in your life! Any idiot would know not to make my mom worry like that!"

Damian glared at me, then turned on his heel and went to go back into the apartment. I caught his sleeve, pulling at the brown fabric uselessly. "We aren't done here." I said, probably a little more harshly than I should have.

"I am." Damian said, his voice like stone. "Lying to the ones that you claim to love is _not_ consideration. And I am sick of being lectured by you." He yanked out of my grasp and tried to go back again. I blocked him. "Wait-"

I stopped. His face-his expression-he caught himself quickly, his features morphing into a typically sullen look, the kind you would expect from someone having an argument, but it was too late. Damian the Immovable had slipped up-I had seen what he didn't want me to; his face, about to scrunch up in what I was almost 100% sure was tears. His eyes were glassy; he ducked his head and swiped at them, muttering incoherently about wind.

_His weaknesses are there, if you just look_.

"Damian."

"It's cold out here. I'm going in. If you want to stay out, I would suggest getting more weather appropriate attire."

"Damian, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have yelled at you." I took him by the shoulders. "I'm sorry." I repeated. "I forget that-"

He stared up at me, his blue-green eyes clear once again. "That I have feelings?" he asked, tone clipped. "Everyone has feelings, Brown, no matter how hard some of us try to repress them. But don't waste your time thinking that you've hurt mine." He twisted out of my grip, making as if to leave.

"Stop." I insisted, blocking him for what felt like the hundredth time. "I meant that I forget that you're still a _child_, Damian, no matter how hard you try to forget that yourself."

Damian remained quiet, his gaze sliding downwards.

"I said I was sorry!" I realized I was starting to raise my voice. "Look, I see that you're trying, Dami." I lowered my tone, leaning closer to him. "But I want-I mean, please, will you talk to me? Tell me what you're thinking." I started to flounder. "I can't read your mind, I don't know what I'm saying half the time, but even if we hurt each other, I want to know. Like, communicating, you know? I want to keep screwing up and cornering you on fire escapes and being _wrong_ about you. I want you to prove me wrong-and, you know, you're right, I'm stupid. I don't always get-"

"You're not stupid." Damian said in a low voice.

"What?" I was positive that there was no way I'd heard him correctly.

"You're not stupid, Stephanie." he said more clearly, looking at me again. His face was red from the chill, or maybe from embarrassment. His hands were knotted at his sides in the pockets of his jeans. "What I'm thinking right now is that you're actually quite smart."

My cheeks burned. He looked so serious-so-I pushed the thought away. I was not going to think that an eleven-year-old boy looked sexy. That was just sick.

"Um. Thanks."

"You obviously need a lot of work in the looks department," he went on, still louder. "And your fighting techniques are juvenile to say the least, though I suppose your prowess at video games could possibly redeem you there-still, I don't see why Bruce thought that taking you on was-"

"OO-kay, then!" I cut him off. "I see that the bonding moment is over. Let's go back inside; you're right, it's cold out here."


	5. Night 4--Part 2

It was with great trepidation that I left Damian with my mother to go to work; but when I came back, I found them baking cookies.

"Damian was just telling me about all of his friends at the daycare!" Mom said brightly as I made my way inside and threw myself into a chair. The day had gotten colder, and the sun had never risen-instead, rain clouds covered the sky and showered us miserables below with nonstop wet. Gotham in the summer-fun, fun, fun. Sweltering one day, freezing the next.

"Oh?" I asked with interest as I kicked off my sneakers and propped my feet up on the chair opposite mine. "I didn't know you had friends, Damian."

"Shut up." he growled. There was flour on his nose and forehead. It was irresistibly cute, like kittens in bubble baths and puppies in flower beds. I decided against telling him.

"You should have told me he needed to get over there-I would have driven him." Mom said reproachfully. "In fact, that's what we're going to do tomorrow."

I raised my eyebrows at Damian. He mouthed, _learning social skills_. Figures-he even had reasons for chatting up middle-aged ladies, and was fully prepared to find a way to make me feel bad about it.

"So, what kind of cookies are you guys baking?" I asked, even though I cared about as much about Damian's cookies as I did his dirty underwear. I was tired, to say the least. I was looking forward to tossing myself into bed and not coming out until the nuclear winter, but I knew that certain pleasantries were expected of me now that I was back under Mom's roof, so I asked.

Damian gave me an inscrutable look. Mom chirped, "Raisin-Date-Nut! They're gluten-free, very healthy!"

"Dami didn't give you his gluten-free-isn't-scientifically-proven-to-be-healthier speech?" I said, surprised. He'd nailed me with that one when I tried to give him some kind of health cereal for breakfast on Friday.

Mom gave me an innocent look. "I don't know what you're talking about. Don't be unpleasant, Stephanie."

Behind her back, Damian smirked at me, and I suddenly knew what it was like to have a younger brother.

"Whatever. Just make sure he didn't sneak arsenic in them or something." I grumbled, kicking out of my chair and heading to the shower. "I only put the cyanide in yours!" Damian replied as I left. And I may note that _he_ didn't get scolded.

I ended up sleeping in my old room, anyway, as Damian refused to leave me alone until I gave him the couch. I was convinced that we'd wake up in the morning to find him gone, run away to fight some crook he deduced was stalking us.

Instead, he knocked on my door sometime after midnight, which was unusually polite for him. I'd been trying to get in touch with Cass, so I answered the door soon after his first tap.

"Do you have any idea how late it is?" I whispered; Mom's room was right down the hall. Damian slipped in. "I know why Dick wanted us to move." he whispered back.

That got my attention-I wasn't the best of detectives, usually relying on Bruce or some Robin to tell me who to go after, and, anyway, I preferred kicking butt to tapping keys. So if Dick told me to move, I moved, and the thought of figuring out why-I'm sorry to say-barely crossed my mind.

To Damian's inquisitive mind, however, it was a challenge to crack.

He sat on my bed. "It's my mother." His eyes were bright-but with excitement, and his whole body seemed to be humming. "My mother came to find me."

Now, I was pretty hazy on the details surrounding Damian's arrival-like what had happened, how it had happened, when it had happened, why it had happened . . . you get the picture-but I'd always gotten the idea that his parting with his mom hadn't been amicable. I knew that a lot of switching sides had gone down, and possible that Damian had tried to kill Batman . . . ? I wasn't really high up on Bruce's need-to-know list, which was probably connected to my lack of detective skills; if you wanted information from him, you had to hack it.

"Your . . . mom? Like, Talia a'Ghul?"

"Yes! And Grayson wants to keep her from me."

It was time for some tough love.

"Damian-you're talking crazier than the doctors up at Arkham."

He looked at me. "No. It all adds up, honestly."

Damian talking honestly? Yup; trip to Crazytown, with a detour in Lost-Touch-With-Realityville.

"I get that you miss your mom," I said quietly, sitting next to him. "But, D, this really isn't the best way-"

"You think I would make this up?" he flared up immediately, jumping to attention. I heard Mom stir down the hall, but she didn't get up. Damian lowered his voice. "Do you think I would _lie_ to you or let myself be _misled_? I am _not_ wrong, Stephanie." he insisted.

He really believed himself. I felt my own certainty that he was wrong wavering. "What proof do you have?" I asked reluctantly.

He pulled out his handheld computer, bringing up a blurry image of a man in a hooded sweatshirt standing besides the door to Gotham Airport. I raised an eyebrow. "Wow, a bum. Now I'm a believer."

"No-it's Aaqib."

"Bless you."

"He's my mother's personal servant; like her pet dog, almost. She never goes anywhere without him."

"Your proof is a hazy picture of a guy in a hoodie at an airport. Do you know how many thousand people there are that meet that description? How do you know this is the right guy? And, furthermore, how do you know that he's coming for _you_?" I hated to crush his dream-it wasn't like the kid had many-but there was no way I was going off on some a'Ghul hunt in the middle of the night. Waaaaay too many things were happening late at night, these days; I wanted at least one peaceful night of sleep. Was that too much to ask?

"I know it's him." Damian pointed at an equally blurry tattoo on the man's exposed forearm. "The _haada_-seeing. Aaqib sees all. He never covers that tattoo."

I squinted at the picture. "That could be anything. An anchor. One of the My Little Ponies. And ad for mouthwash."

"It's the _haada_."

"Which is . . . ?"

Damian glared at me. "I am _not_ wrong!" he insisted. "Can you simply trust me for once?" He sounded genuinely hurt.

I sighed. "What's your plan?"


	6. Night 5

Night 5

Damian left around one, and I slept like a log until noon, waking up to find he and Mom gone-presumably to the daycare-and that I was once again late to work.

"Sorry-sorrysorrysorrysorry!" I panted, hanging my jacket up hurriedly and donning my apron and visor, clocking in with one hand while struggling with the tie of my apron with the other. The girl whose register I was taking over-Donna, I think?-gave me a sour look as she clocked out.

"Ignore Dawn-she's on her period!" Mark called, our short-order cook for the day. Being midafternoon on a Tuesday, the McDonald's was as slow as Winnie-The-Pooh in a Hunny pot, and he was leaning against the front counter next to Kara, who was working the other register. She greeted me with a sticky-sweaty hug(proving that Kryptonians _do_ have human traits), and I was inwardly elated that my day would suck that much less.

"What's new?" I asked her. "I thought you'd left Gotham."

She shrugged. "Metropolis got boring-and my other friends are busy. I'm staying with Tim for the time being."

Oh, joy.

Kara's "other friends" were the time-traveling Legion of Superheroes; and "staying with Tim" meant she was hanging with the Titans again, which would naturally lead into my having to cover most of her shifts as she inevitably became embroiled cape-deep in trouble. And let's not mention her not-so-subtle crush on anything wearing a Robin costume. So much for my day sucking less.

"What about Conner? You can't stay with him?" I asked innocently.

She gave me a look. "My twin and I don't get along." she explained as a side note to Mark. She looked back at me. "You've got chores to complete."

"Shit." I naturally slid into more crass language with the people I worked with, especially when "chores" were involved. "I suppose you're done."

"I get off in an hour." Kara said smugly.

"I'm, like, the choremaster." Mark said.

"And I'm guessing Aaron is doing both of your work right now." I said, and they smirked, partners in crime.

I shook my head, ducking past Mark, rows of fryolators, and a mop bucket to the island by the drive-thru window where the chore list was kept. Surprise, surprise; it was my turn to clean the toilets. I slapped on a headset and slunk out the back, cursing at my so-called friends as they made fun of my plight.

"You here, Steph?" Aaron asked over the set.

"Roger." I always treated the headsets as if they were Batcomms, never seeming to be able to break the habit of military speech-which earned me endless ridicule from even Kara, who knew the reason behind it.

"Good. Once you've tackled the bathrooms, I need you to mop up the main lobby and take over for me on dishes." Aaron was assistant manager, which was the only reason why I didn't tell him what he could do with his dishes and his main lobby floor, and why didn't he do it, anyway?! Besides-I'd just gotten there. It was too soon to be cranky.

"Sure thing. Just cover my drawer."

And to cleaning I got. Up close with urinals, used pads thrown on the floor, and even a full condom in one of the stalls. I wished desperately for some kind of mask or shield to protect me from the full grossness, but no such luck. It was the full sensory treat-smells, feels, and awful sights. I had to flush toilets, scrub seats, and throw away every item known to mankind. Wiped up sticky soap, urine, soda, and what looked like vomit-it was obvious that the bathroom hadn't been cleaned for at least a day. Whoever was on bathroom duty the past two rotations, I surely hated them right then.

Forty-five disgusting minutes later, I was washing my hands in the industrial sink with enough soap to clean an elephant when Aaron came marching up to me with the Face Of God expression that meant I was in deep trouble.

"Why haven't you done the lobby yet?" he snapped.

"I just finished with the bathroo-"

"Get out there and do the lobby!" His eyes nearly popped out of his skinny head, which would have been funny if I wasn't ticked off. I flicked water in his direction, glaring at Mark and Kara who were laughing behind him, and skulked off to mop the lobby. "I just got done with the bathrooms. They were disgusting. And Mark and Kara were out here twiddling their thumbs the whole time." I said over my headset, as soon as I was out of yelling range.

"Mark and Kara's chores are finished." Aaron's reply was clipped. He neglected to mention that he was the one who had done them. Knowing my friends, they had done their tasks so sloppily that the a-personality manager had insisted on finishing their jobs himself.

"Would it kill them to do someone else's? Like, maybe, someone who might be working during the rush later?" I asked, like a reasonable person.

"That's not how it works." was all Aaron would say.

I mopped and seethed and mopped some more. And while I did all that work, I was thinking about Damian.

He'd been so convinced that his mother was the reason Dick had wanted us to move-and, indeed, once we'd hacked into the database of Gotham Airnet, we'd found that a woman traveling under the name Talia Wayne had arrived just that last Friday; the same day Bruce had left town. Coincidence? Damian hadn't been able to find her picture, but he was convinced that she was the one.

We'd then systematically sorted through every hotel register in Gotham; something that took me a lot longer than Damian, and found that someone had checked in using the name Haada, which could have been another coincidence; but too connected to the first to not start to raise even my suspicions. Finally I'd convinced Damian to give up for the night, but only after promising him that we'd check out the hotel-the Mariott on 5th Street-the next day after my shift.

Today. I inwardly groaned, my already aching feet protesting the journey to come. Work dragged on, with no end in sight, chore after chore, broken up only by the occasional customer or drive-thru patron; hours spent chatting with Kara and Mark and being unfairly scolded by Aaron, who eventually gave up his quest to do actual work and joined us at the front counter in gabbing and gossiping about the other workers. It was awful, boring, terrible work, punctuated by the vindictive and backstabbing natures of the workers, and the general uselessness of the system under which we worked, and yet for all that, I kind of liked my job. It gave me money, and it wasn't too demanding for someone who faced down murderers and time travelers before breakfast.

Aaron would have let me out at the same time as Kara, if our boss hadn't showed up and kept me until closing at ten. I lugged myself home, feeling like falling over with every step, and found Damian sitting on the steps of Mom's apartment, looking very miffed. "I got back and you were gone." he stated, testily. "We had something important to do today."

I noticed he was wearing a necklace made of dry pasta. I also noticed he was sitting between me and the door that would lead me to my bed.

"I had work." I replied. "Please let me through so I can die where it isn't so hot."

Damian scowled. "You gave your word."

"I gave my word to my boss that I'd be there when she scheduled me!" I snapped. "And, yes, I have a sucky boss who keeps me overtime and yells at me whether I do things right or wrong and never gives out promotions or raises, and yes I have a hellish job where it seems like the entire freaking world is out to get me, and yes I get treated like shit because people think that because I'm a highschool dropout working at McDonald's, I'm a failure; so, yes, Damian, you're right; I broke my word and I'm really sorry that you can't run off on some half-assed quest to find a mom who isn't here and will never come for you, but I happen to have more important things to deal with, so will you _please_ get the hell out of the way!"

Damian blinked-twice-and then got to his feet. "I thought you were on my side." he muttered, and before I could even begin to try to undo the damage my tirade had done, he had disappeared into the building and I found myself too tired to care.

It wasn't over, though. Mom was waiting to ambush me as I stepped into the apartment, brandishing a feather duster like a sword. "I don't know what you said to Damian, but I've never seen a boy more in need of a hug!" she scolded. "He was so happy all day, and then you come back, and BAM! Instant gloom-and-doom. Honestly, Stephanie, would it have been so hard to smile at him and ask him about his day? He waited out there in that heat for _hours_ for you to come back, and he didn't complain once about how late you were! Have you been babysitting like this the whole time? Really-he's such a sweet boy, too-" Mom kept on lecturing even as I left the room.

I didn't really need to hear it, though. I felt awful enough. I was the one who'd begged Damian to talk to me-and then when he did, I'd bit his head off. He'd been opening up to me the whole time, and I was "too tired" to make good on it. So, yeah, I more or less felt like lower than crap as I slunk down the hallway to the back door, the only place for Damian to escape to.

He was sitting on the fire escape, and I slipped out quickly, making sure to place myself between him and the door as I sat down next to him.

"Sorry." I said, feeling like it was the thousandth time I'd apologized to Damian since the week had begun. "I was tired and I took it out on you."

Damian wouldn't look at me.

"Hey." I put my hand on his knee. "We _will_ find your mom; I really do believe that."

"You're lying."

"I'm not."

"Stephanie, I'm not a fool." he scoffed. "Things said in anger are often the truest. You think I'm being ridiculous." He added more softly, "You may be right."

"I don't." I said firmly, taking his hand. "Really, Damian-I believe in you. If you say your mom is here, then I believe that she's here. I dropped the ball, I'll admit that, and I already apologized for it. We can go right now, if you want. I'll try not to be late again."

Damian was still looking away. "What if," he said, still very quietly, "I _am_ wrong? What if she isn't here, or isn't here for me, or if . . ." He didn't finish.

"You know, you're pretty remarkable." I stated. "I can't imagine anyone wanting to see you except for you." Which pretty much made no grammatical sense, but, hey, I was ready to collapse from exhaustion. "So maybe you're right about everything."

"I don't know." he finally glanced my way, his eyes dark and shadowed in the twilight. "Imagine that, will you? Something that I don't know."

He sounded infinitely old, and sad. I couldn't think of a thing to say, so instead I asked, "How was your day?"

"Awful." he droned. "Colin made me play this absolutely senseless game where you talk about geese and ducks and chase each other around. And then when it got hot, the so-called teachers started throwing water balloons at us, which-which I thought were explosives . . ." he mumbled the last part in a distinctly guilty tone. I fought laughter. "What else?"

"Other torture included wrestling, pointlessly melting already good crayons to make brownish crayons in strange shapes, and a few other pointless tasks too menial to state here. Also, the trip to the planetarium is tomorrow."

"What time?"

"Eight o'clock in the morning, to two in the afternoon."

"Sweet-I'll be able to come with you."

"Whatever."

Damian got up, holding out his hand in an uncommonly kind gesture to help me up. "You look close to death." he informed me. "And you're getting a pimple-they sell cream for that, you know."

He couldn't just let me have one moment.

"I'm going to bed." I glowered at him, refusing his help as I lugged myself to my feet. "Good_night, _Damian."

"Stephanie . . ."

"Yes?"

Damian swallowed hard, looking uncharacteristically nervous, and said, "I am sorry . . . about your job and that I keep making things . . . difficult . . ."

I blinked. Damian _never_ apologized. "Thank you, Dami."

"Don't call me that."


	7. Night 6

Night 6

Mom opted against going to the planetarium, claiming that she had a meeting of sorts to get to-the widowed wives of ex-villains? Something like that-so Damian and I climbed onto the bus all by ourselves like big kids, toting our boxed lunches and waving goodbye to Mom as we went. I felt both obscenely grown-up and young again as Damian and I slowly walked down the aisle, looking for a free place to sit-the absolute worst part of any bus experience. Damian sat next to Colin, who'd saved him a seat, and I got squished in the back, where the "older" kids hung out to prove that they didn't have to be up front like the little'uns. Damian was only one row away from me, but he might as well have been in another galaxy, I felt so out of place. I'd signed up as a chaperone, but I felt like a kid on her first day of kindergarten all over again.

My seatmates were two gangly boys with greasy hair and a short, pudgy girl who was trying way too hard to look like a slut for someone who couldn't have been older than ten. They ignored me; I ignored them; and the half-hour ride passed in discomfort, with me spending the better part of the trip staring daggers into the back of Damian's head for abandoning me. Childish, yes; but being around children tends to do that to me. My school years were the worst years of my life, and seeing kids around me being sucked into that same hole of isolation and insecurity put me into a righteous bad mood. I was all of a sudden grateful of Damian's abnormalities; as far as I could tell, he didn't spend his free time trying to bum smokes off of the older brothers of his friends, or compare his dance moves to Justine Bieber, or whatever.

No . . . he just hardwired security cameras to show footage of the Joker singing kareoke to ABBA instead of himself breaking into the cookie jar and taking five Oreos instead of four. Guess there are pros and cons to every lifestyle.

We offloaded at a large, smooth, metal ball.

"Wow." I said, coming up behind Damian and clapping him on the shoulder. "That is a large, smooth, metal ball."

He didn't appreciate my humor.

"It's supposed to be a model of the moon." he said shortly. "Completely inaccurate, but if you'd read the brochure you'd see that on page seven-"

"I'll take your word for it." I interrupted, pinning on my laminated, bright-pink _volunteer_ badge. "Let's get going, kiddos."

The planetarium was bigger on the inside than it looked from the outside, mostly due to its pitch black ceiling. At any point in the building, you could look up and see whatever constellations were native to the sky at that point in the year. The Star Theater was smack dab in the center, with the other various exhibits arranged in a circle around it. Half of the daycare kids went into the Theater, while I took the other half around the rest of the place. And I had to agree with Damian when he pointed out that the whole museum was both dull and unscientific. I mean, the instructional plaques used words like "sparkly" and "really, really big". It was the most wasted hour of my life, and that includes some of my worse dates with Tim.

The Star Theater was worse. It was this Patrick Warburton ripoff guy telling us mangled versions of ancient Greek myths mixed with a great dose of questionable humor. I could only stand so much before I excused myself to go to the bathroom, leaving one of the greasy-haired boys in charge. He started lobbing spitballs at his friends as I exited the Theater.

I took refuge in the exhibit at the very back of the building, where Orion and his Scorpion pal did LED battle every twenty minutes, or every five if motion was detected. I watched the starry hunter bash the brains out of the constellation that looked nothing like a scorpion for maybe ten minutes before Damian finally slunk out of the dark to join me. He'd been watching behind one of the theatrical curtains for about as long as I'd been there, but I hadn't acknowledged him. I still felt bad about what I'd said to him the previous day, and I didn't know how to make it up to him. It didn't feel right, however, to carry on like everything was normal without at least trying to make good.

"They do know that it was the Scorpion who won in the end, don't they?" was Damian's opening remark as he came to stand next to me.

"It did?"

"Yes. It poisoned him with its aculeus."

I glanced sideways at him. "Its what?"

"Tail. Stingy object." he clarified, in a tone that made it obvious he thought I was an idiot.

"You just made that up." I accused.

"Biology says otherwise-which you would know if you'd finished tenth grade."

Ouch. I deserved that one, though, so I let it slide-and decided that Damian and I were even, barb-wise.

"So, what happened then? He just died?" I asked. Damian shook his head. "No. Ophiucus the Serpent Bearer came along and gave Orion the antidote to the venom, which sent him into the night sky as a constellation."

"That makes no sense."

"It's a myth. It's not true, anyway." Damian grumbled. "Anyway, that's why the constellation Ophiucus is between Orion and the Scorpion-in a normal night sky. In this one, however, it seems that they twist reality to suit their own needs."

I snickered. "Sounds like you know a lot about stars." To clarify, I had stopped snickering by that time, and the snicker was aimed at his comment about reality. However, Damian appeared to think that I was laughing at his interest in astronomy/astrology, because he gave me a withering look and didn't answer.

"That was a genuine statement with no sarcasm intended." I said meekly. I was just putting my foot in my mouth left and right.

"I used to sleep outside." Damian said, unexpectedly. "I don't know why-being in the open made me feel freer, before I even knew what it was to be free. There was always something in me that wanted to join the constellations that moved across the sky, each with their own legend or tale of heroics." He glanced at me. "I believe I've been watching too many movies. That sounded entirely too dramatic."

"No. It was romantic." I murmured, and then blushed. "I mean, old-timey romantic, not romantic-romantic like love and flowers and stuff . . ."

It was Damian's turn to snicker. I chose to ignore him.

"Don't we all want the chance to be heroes?" I leaned forwards, pressing my palms against the display case as I took some of the pressure off of my feet. Damian looked me up and down, as if about to make a disparaging comment, but whatever it was never passed his lips. He just examined me again. I turned to face him. "What? Something in my teeth? My outfit doesn't match? You think I gained a few pounds?"

"I just realized," Damian muttered, "why your mother might have a problem with what you wear." His face, I was shocked to see, was lightly pinkening.

". . . Damian?"

He leaned against the display case, this time openly checking me out, his eyes roaming up and down my body with indecent and acute interest. "Yes. That is in no way appropriate."

"Excuse me?"

"Your shorts are three inches too high; your tank top definitely reveals too much cleavage; and if either garment was any tighter I would be able to see your skin cells. We must go home at once-it is not seemly for you to be seen in public like this. With me. Especially with me. The reputation of the Wayne family is at stake." Damian tapped his lower lip, thoughtful. "Perhaps I could rip down one of these drapes and fashion a toga . . ."

I burst out laughing. "You've finally gone insane! Dami, I'm wearing the same thing I was wearing when I walked out of the house this morning, and it's about ten times more modest than anything anyone my age is wearing on a sweltering day like today-and fifty times more than any girl in that Star Theater. So cool your jets and let's see if this place has a snack bar."

Damian was shaking his head. "Stephanie-"

I grabbed his wrist. "Since when do you care how I dress, anyway?" Without waiting for a reply, I dragged him away.

To my utter dismay, there was no snack bar.

Mom still wasn't back when we got home, so I took it upon myself to make a late lunch. There was a lot of bacon and cheese involved, and a good deal of mess made by me dropping a carton of eggs and Damian throwing a sack of flour in my face. Then I hit him with a spatula and he dumped half a gallon of milk on my head; so naturally I tossed a jar of jam at his head, only he ducked, and it smashed on the wall. Then we took the spray nozzle on the sink, cleaned the whole mess up, and went shopping for frozen dinners. And more milk.

"Manohman." I grunted, lugging the two heaviest of the four shopping bags. Damian had left his manners at home when we packed to go to Mom's. "Remind me to never let you in the kitchen again."

"You started it." Damian objected.

"There was no need to get the flour involved! It was an innocent bystander!" I pointed out, then changed the subject. "So. Your mother."

"What about her?"

"Do we have a new plan, since yesterday's kind of fell through?"

"Simple." Damian said innocently-a dangerous sign. "Tonight we're going to break into her hotel room."

"Oh. Yeah, that's simple." I lied. And then I yelled, possibly a little too loudly, "ARE YOU FREAKING INSANE?!"

Some guy walking his dog gave me a funny look. I ignored him. Damian made a rude gesture that I was too flustered to berate him for.

"Breaking and entering is against the law!" I hissed.

"Which is why you will break and I will enter. That way we only receive half a charge each."

I stared at Damian. Had he just made a joke?

"That was a joke." he said. With a straight face.

"Okay . . . moving on from breaking a very law of nature . . . what if this lady isn't your mom? What if we break into some random lady's hotel room?" I asked. Damian gave me a dour look. "Surely you aren't thinking we'll get caught." he said incredulously.

I shrugged. Damian scoffed. "Not even an FBI agent will be able to tell we were there."

And that was how I ended up spending my Wednesday night breaking into the Mariott Hotel.

"Don't touch anything." Damian whispered to me as we slowly eased in through the window he'd just jimmed open. It was around eleven, but the room was empty; and only a single suitcase made it different from any other hotel room in the building.

"Are you sure this is the right one?"

He silently pointed to the room number. 201.

"Are you sure that's-"

"Shut up." he hissed. "I need to hear in case someone is coming." I shut up-but only because I didn't want to get caught.

Damian started to carefully pick through the suitcase, while I wandered around the room trying not to touch anything but search for clues at the same time.

"There's nothing." Damian finally said. His voice was hushed, but the frustration was obvious. "This bag is a decoy, or else the belongings of the most boring, Walmart-loving clown in history."

"Hmm." Why check into a hotel room at all if you weren't going to use it? That's what I was thinking, as I did my Batgirl prowling thing around the room-purple was great for blending in to the darkness, though I still couldn't beat Robin . . . in his red-and-green circus attire . . . huh. On a whim, I opened the desk drawer. It made a scraping sound, and Damian shot me a fierce look, but I was too busy thinking. Working on the theory that this was Talia's room, the only reason she would rent a room would be to throw pursuers off her trail; but if all of her decoy stuff was from Walmart, than she obviously hadn't had a lot of time to throw it together-because pretty much that whole family was a master at deception, and knowing her, she would have a whole Gucci wardrobe that would tell a whole "story" about its "owner" to throw off anybody looking for her. So, deduction one-she hadn't expected to be followed, and had been forced to cobble up a ruse using what items she could; perhaps using the help of that Aaqib guy.

She obviously wasn't staying in this room, but she had to be staying somewhere. A friend? Maybe, but Talia wasn't the type-plus America wasn't a country she kept too many close ties with. Another hotel, then; but see previous statement. The Mariott Hotel was closest to the airport, so she'd probably just checked into the first one she'd seen.

Deduction two-I pulled out the phone book. She would have looked up a number from there.

"Damian." I whispered. He joined me immediately. "What are you-" he stopped, obviously fitting together the pieces must faster than I had. "The phone." he breathed, taking my reasoning a step farther. He dashed to the phone, apparently no longer concerned with being quiet, me hot on his heels, and picked it up, hitting the redial button. We sat on the bed, ear to ear, waiting for the person on the other end to pick up.

"Jolly Roger Inn and Spa, how may I help you?"

Damian hung up. His expression was triumphant. "Good detective work, Brown!" he whispered, and actually smiled at me.

I tried not to feel _too_ pleased with myself.


	8. Night 7

Night 7

"Are you _sure_ you'll be alright on your own?" Mom asked, for about the hundredth time, as Damian and I hauled our stuff back to my car after a hasty breakfast. "We'll be fine. This place is so out of the way, even Batman wouldn't be able to find us." I lied confidently. Damian, wisely, remained silent.

"Besides, I could use a spa day." I added. I had called Kara and convinced her to take my next two days at work-early weekend, I claimed-and in exchange promised to cover her the following week. She had wished me luck with the nonexistent boyfriend I'd invented to make her feel sorry enough for me to cover my shifts; I tried not to feel guilty.

"Well, you kids have fun." Mom hugged me, and then Damian, who looked mildly stunned, especially when she added a giant smooch to his forehead. I got the feeling Damian hadn't had much motherly interaction. "We'll have so much fun, we won't want to come home." I promised, and we were gone.

"So, you wanna stop for something fatty and really bad for you?" I asked, after we'd left the brownstone in our dust. "Anywhere but McDonald's-my treat." I offered. Damian shook his head, staring blankly out the passenger side window. "Take me to my mother, please."

He sounded so subdued, I didn't even venture a reply.

It was a very long, very quiet ride, and I was very happy to arrive at the Jolly Roger Inn and Spa, which was a house-sized stone building with a pool the size of Alaska and a promising-looking pirate-themed massage hall. The masseuses and masseurs were topless and wearing pirate hats. Extremely relaxing.

I checked us in under Wayne and we were shown to a room with the biggest flat screen TV I'd ever seen, and two of the fluffiest beds known to mankind. "I want to stay here forever." I declared, throwing myself onto the nearest one, temporarily forgetting our purpose.

"We're here on business." Damian said testily, throwing his duffel onto the other bed.

"Let's just play for a teensy little bit." I pleaded, facedown on the mattress. I turned my head so that I could breathe and look at him. "Everyone eats dinner together here, anyway; so we can check out the guests then."

Damian reluctantly acquiesced, but he insisted on staying in the room as I went for a massage, mud bath, and general beauty treatment. It took a mere three hours, and when I came back, Damian was watching daytime television and eating something with lettuce and a creamy sauce. "Succumbed to the temptations of the good life?" I asked lightly as I plopped down next to him and began eating off of his plate. Our shoulders pressed together.

"You smell awful." Damian said flatly.

"It's called clean. You should try it-their mud baths are to _die_ for."

Damian eyed me. "You walked around in that?" Referring to my fluffy white robe.

"Everyone does." I said breezily.

"Put on some pants before you sit on my bed."

"I'm not a _dog_. And I'm wearing underwear-want to see?"

"No!" Damian actually flung up his hands to cover his eyes. I laughed. It felt good to be teasing Damian again. My time in the spa had left me feeling at the top of my A-game, ready to face whatever might come; whether it be the greasy atmosphere of McDonald's or the sinister workings of whatever being was capable of conceiving a mess like Damian.

I went and put on some pants. A shirt, too, since I felt like being generous, and then Damian and I pigged out on pasta and seafood while trying to figure out the complex plot of the Young and the Restless despite having only seen about three episodes between us before that day. It was a great afternoon, and I even managed to coax Damian into going swimming shortly before supper. It felt like being on vacation, albeit with the strangest travel companion I was likely to choose.

Then came dinner-a dress-up affair that I hadn't anticipated. Damian, naturally, had brought a suit-and my favorite dress.

"I went through your wardrobe at your mother's house." he said unapologetically. "This was the only thing that didn't make me want to puke."

I wasn't sure if I felt flattered or horrified, so I put on the dress and we went to dinner.

"That was a complete waste of time. I can't believe I listened to you." Damian groused, and hour later, loosening his tie as I unlocked the door to our room. "How was I supposed to know she wouldn't show up?" I demanded.

"We'll have to hack into the registry-"

"Damian."

I closed the door behind him firmly, making him listen to me. "Look. We've tracked your mother this far, and made no effort to hide ourselves. If she wanted to see us, she'd be here already."

Damian stared at me.

"What I'm saying," I went on, as gently as I could. "is that I think that the person your mother is avoiding-"

"No."

"-is-"  
"Stop."

"-yo-"

"Stop it, Stephanie!" he barked. He was almost folded in on himself, arms wrapped around his stomach as if that could hold him together. His eyes were glassy, like they'd been a few days ago on the fire escape outside of my mother's apartment.

"You don't think that that hasn't occurred to me?" he asked, voice hoarse. "You don't think I didn't realize that from the second we found her hotel room empty? Of _course_ she doesn't want to see me . . . But I . . ."

He went as if to go into the bathroom, but I stopped him, wrapping my arms around his unyielding frame in something like a hug. "Look-I'm sorry. Damian, I'm really, really sorry." I muttered self-consciously. There wasn't anything else I could think of; I was all out of wise words and uplifting speeches. He just wanted to see his mother. There was nothing wrong with that. For a second, we stood like that-him, impartial, me, hugging a statue. And then, slowly, Damian leaned his head on my shoulder. He didn't cry-that would be surrendering too much-but he let out a small gasp and pressed his face into my neck.

"If you tell anyone, I'll kill you." he mumbled.

"Secrets stay between friends." I promised. "Pinky promise, swear on it. Cross my heart and hope to die." I threaded my fingers through his hair. I didn't know what else to do, what to suggest. I was supposed to be in charge, but I was utterly at a loss.

Plus, touching Damian made me feel . . . weird. Elated, but in a guilty way, the lurching-stomach feeling usually associated with brushing skin with a crush. It made me think of . . . things, things I shouldn't think about an eleven-year-old, things I shouldn't think about _Damian_, for goodness' sake, but they were there, making me feel like crawling out of my own skin to escape them, screaming so loud in my head that I couldn't hear them, squeeze my eyes tightly shut so that I couldn't envision them, taste them, acknowledge them and therefore make them real.

Damian and I, as if on some unheard cue, stepped away at the same time. Damian brushed my cheek with him thumb, a grown-up gesture coming from someone who was still-I fiercely reminded myself-just a boy. "Thank you." he said absently, and my heart skipped a beat. I was too aware of how alone we were; even though we'd been alone for almost a week now. Here, it was too different, too detached, like a dream that I was having, a dream where anything could happen because it _wasn't real_, wasn't happening, was all an illusion.

"Grayson was trying to protect me. He knew she didn't want to see me." Damian spoke almost to himself as he slowly finished undoing his tie, hanging up his suit jacket in the closet. "He was trying to protect me from myself. I feel like such a fool. Father, too, by stopping the patrols. He must have known about Aaqib . . ."

"You just wanted to see your mom. There's no harm in that." I tried to tell him, but he wasn't listening. He'd already stepped into the closet to change. I slipped into the bathroom, removing my jewelry and dress and exchanging them for pjs. When I came out, Damian was sitting on his bed in flannel Superman pants, no shirt, channel flipping. I forced myself not to stare.

"So, how about we stream a Harry Potter marathon on Pay-Per-View and charge it to Bruce's tab?" I asked brightly, lamely attempting to cheer him up. Damian wordlessly switched to the Pay-Per-View channel, but his eyes were on me. I'd sat on the far edge of my bed. "Why are you way over there?" he asked curiously. "You've been blatantly disregarding my personal space all week. Why the sudden change?"

"No change. I just wanted to sit here." I said, too casually. Damian arched an eyebrow. "Maybe we should go back." I said suddenly. "I mean, we're done here, right? Maybe we should drive back to Wayne Manor-"

"And miss the opportunity to have all this fun?" Damian asked sarcastically. He gave me a sideways glance. "Or are you nervous about being alone with me?"

"I-I-that's-"

"For God's sake, I won't _kill _you in your sleep or something!" he burst out, and I realized what he'd meant.

"I know!" I cried indignantly, and to prove I wasn't afraid, I crossed the room and sat next to him.

Bad move.

"Or," Damian slid closer to me, so that his breath fell hot on my bare shoulder and I could practically feel the smile creeping over his face. "are you nervous because you finally realized I am of the male genus?"

"Shove off." I pushed at him, but, rather like a rock, he didn't budge. "Damian. Joke's not funny anymore." He didn't move, just kept studying me with an inscrutable expression in his clear eyes.

I looked at him, leaning back to do so. "You're freaking me out, Dami. Stop kidding around."

He pulled back. "I wasn't joking. I often imagine scenarios such as this one."

I raised both eyebrows. "Okay, I think we need to cover some boundries when it comes to what we talk about; though, don't get me wrong, I'm glad we're talking. One of those boundries should definitely be any . . . um . . . scenarios you have in your head-talk to Bruce about that. I, uh, know that boys go through different . . . changes . . . than girls, different-um-stuff happens to them-"

Damian grabbed me by the shoulders. "I am sick of talking."

And, so, yeah-then he kissed me.

Looking back, that was the moment when I should have pushed him away and reinforced my speech about boundries. Or maybe should have at least stopped for a second of rational thought, because I had in no way seen that coming or had any indication from either of us that-that we felt that way. But my blood had already been running hot, and I found myself thinking things like, _wow, he's actually pretty good_ and, _I wonder if he practiced, or if it's just natural talent_, and then I wasn't thinking at all.

His bare arms were brushing mine, wrapping around me, his palms running under my shirt, pulling me towards him. He kissed me like there was no other way he wanted to spend his time, and for one glorious moment, I _owned_ Damian Wayne.

For one glorious moment, I could give him every ounce of the love that I'd been storing up, waiting to give to the right person, the love that poured out of me so strongly I drove most people away with it; but Damian needed it, and soaked it up, and in return he gave me his whole self. He allowed me to see him, right then, and it was the closest I'd ever felt to anyone, a closeness that was so completely that I felt out connection like a tangible weight between us; a thin thread that was too strong, to precious to ever, ever want to give up.

He pulled back, gasping, and I tentatively touched my face to find tears there. "I want to love you." I whispered, shocked at my own gaping need. I hadn't realized it, but I wanted someone that I could love, so wholly and completely, so simply without worrying about pasts or futures. I had been blindsided by it, because that week with Damian was like being suspended in time, a break from ordinary existence, and in that break I saw just how lonely I'd become, and how dependant on Damian-Damian, who wasn't even in his teens yet. Damian, who I should know better than to screw with, because as Dick had said, I was supposed to be saving him-not messing up his head even more. 'I want it so bad."

"Then do it." Damian ordered, intense, rolling over, looming over me, pinning my wrists to the bed so that I couldn't move even if I had wanted to. His azure eyes were so intense, so dark, for someone that young. His chest was heaving; I ached to touch him. "Stephanie-" my name slipped out of him, and he let me go, moving away, sitting on the edge of the bed. He buried his face in his hands, and I barely heard him choke out his plea- "Love me. Please."


	9. Night 8

Night 8

There are some days that I just don't want to get up; waking up that next day at the Jolly Roger was one of them. I opened my eyes to find Damian gone, and then the night before came back to me, and I didn't know if I was going to scream or cry.

_"Love me. Please."_

I had never heard a more pitiful cry of help in my whole life, but after he'd said it, Damian had abruptly stood up and disappeared into the bathroom. For once, I didn't try to follow him and make him feel better-there was too much going on in my own head. For the past week, I'd been putting Damian's feelings before mine, I'd been the one to bend and see things his way and feel sorry for him-but that didn't mean that my life was a piece of cake. I finally had to accept that I had more on my plate than I could deal with, and maybe it was okay to admit that.

Damian wasn't still in the bathroom when I looked; I found him on the balcony outside our room, leaning on the railing looking out. He didn't look at me when I slipped out to stand next to him.

"Um. About last night . . ." I started.

Damian shook his head. "Forget about it. I'm sorry I acted such-think of it as the fruitless passions of a not-yet-matured boy."

I almost wanted to laugh, despite the serious atmosphere. I mean "fruitless passions"? Come on, did he think this was _Gone With The Wind_ or what? "Damian-" I halted. Where to go from there? I was embarrassed by how I'd lost my head, but he'd lost his, too. I couldn't forget my emotions, and I couldn't change them. All I could do was face them, and in the light of the morning sun, they seemed ugly and unforgivable.

Damian wrapped his arms around me, so tightly, so tightly. He held me for a long time, not saying a word, breathing deeply into my hair. Last night I'd felt shaky and erratic, unsure of my own reactions, filled with the worries and excitement of a first crush. Now I was steady in his embrace, taking strength from him rather than losing it. I pressed my face into his tan neck, closing my eyes against the soft skin and knowing that I was already damned. But, uselessly, I pulled away from him, grabbing his hands and returning them to his sides. It was hard to look him in the eye, but I did. I had to, if not for him, then for myself.

"You're eleven." I said finally.

"I know." he replied.

We left it at that.

Naturally, Dick had to be there when we drove into Wayne Manor later that day.

"When I recommended you leave, I didn't mean go on a vacation!" he snarled at us, as we sheepishly got out of the car(I got out sheepishly, 100% convinced that Dick would somehow be able to tell what had happened just by looking at us; Damian was, as usual, totally unfazed).

"Imagine how worried I was when I went to your mom's place, Steph, only to be told that you had taken off on some spa trip a few hours before!" He glared at me, in particular. "You are in so much trouble." he hissed.

Now, Dick is typically a very easygoing guy. Taking off for a weekend at a spa while Bruce was away(and using his credit card to pay for the trip)was just the kind of stunt he himself might have pulled, before he decided to be mature and boring and just like Tim. So to have him say that we were in trouble, frankly, terrified me; but even the terror didn't fully cut through the overall feeling of listlessness that had flooded me after my brief conversation with Damian on the balcony.

I unloaded our stuff as Damian gave Dick the rundown-he found out about Talia, got ticked off, dragged me to the inn&spa to find her, and then realized she didn't want to be found. He left out any kissing, groping, etc., for which I was grateful; he also didn't mention we'd watched the entire Lord Of The Rings series in HD and charged it to Bruce's Paypal account. That was nice of him.

"And, to conclude," Damian finally said, after my arms had started aching from holding both of our luggage for so long(they were blocking the door), "never, ever, ever try to hide something from me again, because I will find out, and I will do something about it. In short, this is all your fault, Grayson."

Dick stared at the boy, and then ruffled his hair. "Nice try, kiddo. I'm not buying it." He took a suitcase from me and we proceeded inside. "So, you'll be going now, then?" he asked over his shoulder. "I imagine it's been tough on you, juggling everything."

I thought about making meals for Damian, and going to work, and being late for work-about the field trip to the "museum" and the movie marathons-about literally falling into bed after patrolling because I was just _that tired,_ and the nights I didn't make it to the bed and Damian and I slept on the sofa. I tried not to think about the kissing. "It wasn't so bad." I lied.

"Well, we won't keep you any longer." Dick grinned. "I know this wasn't your favorite way to spend a week, but thanks anyway." His message was clear; _it's time to go now_. In typical Dick fashion, he seemed to know exactly the right thing to do even when he didn't know he was giving advice.

I glanced at Damian, who happened to be looking at me at the same time. The expression in his eyes was painfully clear, and I wondered how I had ever found him hard to read. He was an open book now, but I didn't know if it was because I was watching him now, or because somehow the past night had opened my eyes to his soul. Either way, I could tell he didn't want me to go.

_I_ didn't want me to go.

"You're going to kick me out without any lunch?" I asked, mock indignant, and Dick promised to whip something up while Damian and I unpacked.

I walked a few paces behind him as we plodded to our rooms. When Damian reached his, he tilted his head towards me. "Leave the bag outside and come in for a second." he ordered. Too taken off guard to be wary, I did as he said.

He slammed the door behind me, and was kissing me before I had a chance to ask what he wanted. My eyes closed involuntarily, and I slipped my arms around his waist, leaning against the door. He pressed his entire weight against me, making soft sounds as I rubbed his back and traced a line around his lips with my tongue. I was somehow reminded of stroking a cat-the same kind of intense love flowed wherever we connected. Damian wound one hand through mine, pulled back long enough to whisper, "Don't go.", and slipped his tongue into my mouth. Not thinking, not reasoning, I pulled him closer, and we stumbled our way to his bed.

"Wait-" I muttered, regretting opting to stay for lunch. "Wait, wait-"

"I don't want to." Damian told me, anger tinting his voice. "I don't want to wait, I don't want to do the right thing, I don't care-"

"Damian-"

"_Let me finish_, Stephanie-I don't care what the world thinks. I do not care how old I am. All I care about . . ." he trailed his fingers over my collarbone, then pressed a light kiss on the spot. "All I care about is ." he whispered.

I can't tell you the number of times that I had wished for a guy to say something like that-isn't that what all girls want, in the end?-but I stood up, pushing him gently away, my eyebrows creasing together. It wasn't right. Not right now. "No. No." It broke my heart, but I said no.

I couldn't deny anymore that I loved Damian; that I had fallen in love with him this past week something fierce; but I could walk away. I could do the right thing for once in my life. So I did.

I'm not proud of any of this, as beautiful and awful as the whole ordeal was; but I do take small pride in that one thing-that, for one night at least, I did the right thing. I had all the right intentions. I even followed them through. I left Damian and came, if briefly, to my senses-I mean, loving an eleven-year-old boy? Sick. Disgusting. Despicable.

Unavoidable.


	10. Night 8(Part 2)

Night 14

They talk about me as if I'm not here, and they say that I will be scarred; but I feel normal. I know you, and I know that I am as much to blame-if not more so-than you are. I was the one who needed you first. You feel like you let this happen; but I _made_ this happen. I wanted something, and like always, I took it.

I love you.

I'm so sorry.

Night 8

I knew that Stephanie was gone. I knew her determined look, her crazy look, her leave-me-alone-I've-had-a-bad-day-look. I knew-because I was always watching.

So I was perfectly composed as I walked into the kitchen to see Dick flipping grilled cheeses, and held up my hand to spare him the trouble of telling me that Stephanie left. "I know she left. She said goodbye." I lied. I lied all the time, but that lie bothered me.

I wished she had said goodbye; it would have made it easier to pretend she still cared. I had no illusions. I knew how lonely Stephanie was, and how she craved the kind of closeness she used to have with people before taking up the mantle forced her to put a wall between herself and others. I knew what she wanted, and I'd noticed the small reactions she'd had to my presence-but I wasn't a fool enough to think it was love. It was my being the only male around, it was her being broken for all she pretended to be happy; and our being together was chemical reaction. I should feel guilty for that, but guilt did not stick to me like it did others. It slid off and I forgot about it as easily as forgetting to brush my teeth-though, that I rarely forgot.

I knew all about Stephanie, because I always watched her.

She cut through my own loneliness. I was in love with her. I manipulated her so that I could get what I wanted. It was a strange mix of devotion and desire that had me in its clutches.

And I didn't feel sorry for a minute of it.

"Grilled cheeses. Good for the soul." Dick said cheerfully, flipping the sandwich onto my plate. I gave him a dour look. "I wish you hadn't come back. I wish your car had crashed." I informed him. If he'd stayed away just one more day, I was sure that I could have convinced Stephanie to invest in a relationship with me. But, no, Dick had come back and reminded her that she wasn't alone, that she had people to rely on other than me, and that I was only eleven.

I hated my age. With a vengeance. More than I'd hated anything else in my entire life.

"It's not like you to be wishful." Dick retorted, with barely a pause. Almost nothing I said ever phased him.

"Today is an exception."

"Well, don't stress out. Steph will be back." Dick replied, with an annoying amount of chipperness. "You and she are thick as thieves, yeah? I can't imagine her going too long without coming back to see you."

"She's not coming back." I said darkly. "Because of you, she's left for good."

"Nonsense." Dick said briskly. "She's scheduled for patrol tonight."

I shook my head-as usual, he knew nothing-and left the sandwich. It wasn't lunch that I was hungry for. My room provided no distraction; neither did my "gym". I called Stephanie twice, but she had shut off her phone. Her mother engaged me in a lovely and distracting conversation about proper egg substitutes without actually answering my question of whether or not Stephanie was there; and Kara simply teased me about having a crush.

I ran out of girls to call.

Dick was willing to train with me until it was time for patrol; and then Stephanie finally returned my call.

Dick answered, being closer to the phone. "lo? Steph!"

I made a grab for the phone.

"Okay. Bye." Dick said, and hung up.

"Richard John Grayson!" I shouted, totally exasperated. Dick wrestled me into a headlock."Who gave you permission to use my full name, eh? Have some respect!"

"I wanted to talk to her!" I snapped, effortlessly removing myself from what he no doubt regarded as a friendly gesture. "What did she say!"

"Huh?" Dick let me go. "Nothing much; she just cancelled out on patrolling tonight, which is fine, because, y'know, that _was_ our deal and I'm kind of getting rusty."

"Where is she now? What's she doing? Why'd she cancel?" I demanded, too anxious to be catty.

Dick shrugged. "She didn't say. As you might have noticed, it was a rather short conversation. I assume she's headed to Bludhaven though; we're switching shifts."

Bludhaven. I glanced up at Dick, who seemed to guess my thoughts immediately-an irritating habit of his. "No, Damian. You are not going to Bludhaven."

"I wasn't planning on it." I lied. Dick eyed me. I attempted a smile that did nothing to ease his suspicions. "Honestly; we have to patrol, don't we?"

That almost convinced him, enough to drop the subject and walk away. I started to plot my trip to Bludhaven.

I hated, once again, my age; it made traveling a real pain. I could drive, of course, but if I was stopped, there would be a lot of trouble to be had. I couldn't even take a bus; I wasn't old enough to own a pass. That left walking, which even at top speed across rooftops would take me the better part of the night; one or two in the morning if I went after patrol, dusk if I left right then.

Breaking patrol would anger Dick, who might call my father-did I really want to risk that? On the other hand, waking up Stephanie in the early morning hours had never proved productive in the past. There was little possibility of us having a real conversation at one in the morning.

I was thus conflicted for the remainder of my long day, and when supper time had rolled around, I was gone.

I knew that I would be in trouble when I returned, but I also knew that I didn't want to let Stephanie get off easy, without even a decent fight. She hadn't even been angry with me when she left. That was a real problem-anger I could handle, and love I would prefer, but indifference? That was not an option.

I traveled at top speed, climbing fire escapes and utilizing wash lines when the buildings became farther and farther apart. I finally reached the edge of the city, and stared out at the expanse of land between Gotham and Bludhaven. This was it-it wasn't too late to turn back. Pretend I was just eager to go on patrol, and give up my pesky feelings for Stephanie.

They were, for one thing, totally ruining my relationship with Dick; causing me to skip patrols, for instance. They changed my outlook on life to one that was dismally cheerful, to the point where I allowed small children to teach me the Hokey Pokey and put funny animal hats on my head. They made me unstable, unreliable; my logical decisions were now tainted by what she would think, how she would act. I wanted to have a heart; I was scared to have a heart. It might just be simpler to let them go.

In the end, there was no choice. I descended to the ground and began to trod along the side of the highway. Cars occasionally whizzed past, forcing me backwards with their speed, but I was otherwise alone. The road seemed very long.

When I was about halfway, my phone rang, surprising me. I hadn't even _wanted_ a phone-I preferred comm links, and not having to talk to anyone who didn't wear them-but Bruce had insisted when he first told us about his trip. I'd surrendered once Stephanie said she was getting one, too. Hers was the first number I punched into the speed dial, but I'd never once used it. Though I was by no means less intelligent than Stephanie, it took me quite a while to figure out how to answer the device.

"Hello?" I finally said into what I assumed was the speaking end of the phone.

"What on earth do you think you're doing?" Stephanie shrieked on the other end. Overreacting as usual.

"At the present moment, I find myself walking." I said, a tad snidely, I myself must admit.

Stephanie sighed, a rush of wind in my ear. "Damian. Where are you?"

"I'm on a road."

"_What_ road?"

"The long one."

"Damian!"

"I'm not good with directions." I defended my answer. If I told her where I was, I knew she'd just send Dick after me and I wouldn't get to see her.

"You're coming here, aren't you?" Stephanie moaned.

"You've been talking with Dick, haven't you?" I mimicked her tone.

"Damian-"

"I won't talk about this any longer." I said curtly, but then couldn't discern how I was supposed to disconnect the call. Stephanie's voice rang out before I could get a clue.

"Damian, I agree."

I put the phone back to my ear. "You agree?"

"All the talking in the world-and all the walking, for that matter-won't change the facts." Stephanie said curtly. "I accept that you can't change how you feel, and maybe you can just say 'to hell with the world' and not care, but I can't."

"Stephanie-"

"No, Dami." she said, with finality. "I couldn't live with myself, knowing that I . . . that we-I just can't. I just don't feel the same way."

"Stephanie-"

"Go home, Damian."

I stopped right where I was, my legs giving out involuntarily, my rear hitting the tar in a painful way. I was glad Stephanie wasn't around to see my indignity; but her voice in my ear was as real as anything-realer than the hot night, realer than the semi truck barreling by on the other side of the road.

"Stephanie Brown. Your stupidity continues to astound me." I rasped, my vocabulary becoming more complicated the more agitated I became. "Home is wherever you are." I blushed, saying something so affectionate-so weak-but I knew that Stephanie thought with her heart, and the best way to get her to listen was to appeal to it. "You should know that by now."

I cradled the phone in one hand, my knees curling up to my chest, and waited. Stephanie didn't hang up, so neither did I . . . and no, it wasn't just because I didn't know how. We sat in silence for a long time, cars on my end, sounds of silverware clinking on hers. I was patient. I knew that I would have to be.

"Hurry up if you're coming, then. I just washed the supper dishes." Stephanie finally said, and disconnected. I slowly shut the phone and got to my feet, my muscles aching from being in one position for so long. I checked the time on my hand held computer-I'd been on the phone with Stephanie for over two hours, waiting for her to break. All in all, a much better outcome than I would have hoped for.

In comparison, I made it to Bludhaven in record time. Grayson's apartment was close to the heart of the city-next door to a Subway, and across the street from a park. He moved around a lot, and this was the nicest place I'd seen him stay-though there was still graffiti on the front door and discarded needles in the gutter. He always managed to be at least two doors down from a food joint, something that he bragged about.

I buzzed Stephanie, and she let me in without comment. As soon as I hit the landing she was on, she opened the apartment door, let me in, and locked it immediately after. "Not that I can't take care of myself," she muttered, "but Dick made me promise."

I pulled her to me, not able to help myself. She smelled like Chinese food and flower perfume. Her body was softer than most girls in her line of work, and for a second I forgot about getting her back to Gotham or making her love me. I just stayed there, resting my head on her shoulder, feeling as though I could melt into her and never come out. Wishing more than anything that I could.

She pushed me away. "Damian, stop. I already said-"

"Yes, yes, you _said_." I stepped back, a scowl spreading over my face. "You always say quite a lot, and never manage to get around to letting me say anything, not in any of your lectures or pep talks."

"Wh-"

"Did you think you were the only party who had an interest in this situation?"

"Dam-"

"Did you think that you could really have the last word?" My lip curled involuntarily; I hated how nasty I could be with her, but sometimes it was the only way the obstinate girl would listen. "Did you think that you alone are responsible for my well-being? I've been making conscious decisions for longer than you've been dressing up as a purple bat."

Stephanie stared at me, as if that had never occurred to her. "Sit down." she said at last. "I'll make us some chocolate milk, and we'll talk."

Sitting at the table, waiting for her to finish mixing syrup with milk, I had never been more nervous in my life. In my hot-headed rush to go to Steph, I hadn't thought once of how I'd handle the situation once I got there. It seemed to take her a long time, to stir a spoon in two glasses. My fingers drummed the table; my toes jittered inside my boots. There were a million tiny bees flying around between my stomach and my genital area, and they liked to sting. All through, I tried to keep my outside calm and collected; not showing any of my thoughts on the outside. I don't know how well I did-Stephanie always had a knack for seeing through my most persistent of game faces.

After what felt like an age, Stephanie sat down, sliding the cold glass over to me. Drops of perspiration slid down it and onto the table, creating a wet ring on the wood, and my mind threw an image of Stephanie and me in bed into my consciousness. Sweat, sliding down my face and hers. A wet ring. My imagination running away with me.

I tore my mind back into reality. Stephanie was looking at me. Maybe, I considered briefly, there really was something depraved about me. And maybe, I thought a split-second later, I didn't really care.

"I," I began. "I am aware of how impossible . . . how _painful_ a relationship between us would be. I know what's standing in our way, and I also know how the people around us would react if they found out. But, Stephanie . . ." I forced myself to meet her eyes. "That doesn't mean that it's impossible. There is a precedent, and I'm not the kind of person to give up something I want because there's a _possibility_ I could lose it. To make my point perfectly clear," I leaned forward, hoping that she could see how serious I was. "I will not walk out of this building until you have promised me to at least give me a chance."

"Damian, this is a bad idea." She didn't sound as sure as she'd been on the phone-I was weakening her. That was good.

"I know. I recognize your doubts-now please recognize that I've become accustomed to my life with you in it. That is to say-" I stared down at the milk, and ventured a sip. It was too sweet. "-without you . . . everything . . . it's pointless. I . . . want you around, Stephanie. And that's all I can say to persuade you to come back. That, and that without you walking beside me, I will go insane." And I will fall back into the darkness, I added in my head, but I had already said entirely too much. I felt as though I had been standing on the edge of a high cliff, and then just leapt off without even thinking of the consequences-and now I was on my way down and screaming, regretting my choice but having no way to stop the inevitable end-it would end, at least. The pain, and the suppression, and the loneliness-it would end if I let myself fall into Stephanie. She had shown me life beyond a cowl or a mask. She had shown me what I could only suppose was absolute happiness. In repayment, I was destroying her life-but she hadn't redeemed me quite enough for me to feel guilty.

Stephanie looked at me, then shook her head. "No, Damian. You can't use me as some kind of crutch. I won't be that for you-and I won't let myself . . ." She hesitated. "I won't deny that I have, um, certain feelings. But there is a line that no one crosses-that _I_ don't cross, and this is it. If I gave in . . . I wouldn't be able to so much as look you in the eye, Damian. I wouldn't be myself." There was something in her face that prevented me from arguing further. I somehow could tell-social cues-that she wouldn't budge tonight.

"May I at least sleep on the couch tonight?" I asked, it being past midnight; and, as she kept reminding me, I was only eleven.

Stephanie sighed. "Damian. Were you even listening to me?"

"Yes." I said, getting up and crossing over to her. "I just didn't believe you. You're stronger than that, Stephanie." I pressed my lips to her forehead. "I'll be in the other room . . . you know, if you change your mind."


	11. Night 9

Night 9

I dreamed about Stephanie.

I dreamed she came to me, in her tank top and underwear, and ran her hand up my side, waking me effortlessly. I dreamed she leaned over me and brushed her pink lips against mine, and I dreamed that she didn't push me away. I dreamed of nipping at her lower lip and pulling her waist against my chest, pressing my cheek into her ribcage. I dreamed of her hands in my hair and down my neck, and being able to keep my arms around her forever. I dreamed that we were together, and I was a man, a full grown man, and no one said we had to stop. No one said we couldn't be together; not even Stephanie. No one dared.

When I woke up, my face was wet with tears and Stephanie was gone, maybe because she had to work, maybe just because she didn't want to see me. That was good. I didn't want her to see me in that state-it was embarrassing. I had told her I didn't believe her; but there was doubt in my mind. My confidence was waning. My nerve was-imperceptibly to all but myself-weakening.

I went to the daycare that day, having nothing better to do, and Colin was waiting for me as I trudged in with my sloppily packed lunch. Three kids were throwing sand at each other-one was putting sand in the tissue box-and everyone else was either coloring or playing Tag. Colin was sitting at one of the plastic play tables, scowling down at his paper.

I sat next to him. "What are you doing?"

"Spelling homework."

"Let me see." I pulled his paper over, looked at the words, and proceeded to finish his homework, easily mimicking his shoddy handwriting. "What's on the schedule for today?" I asked when we were done, as a boy ran by with jam in his hair, egged on by a girl who'd pulled her underwear up to her elbows.

Colin shrugged. "Today is free project day. We do whatever-just make sure the littles don't get into trouble."

"Like that?" I pointed at the girl who was still pouring sand into the tissue box. Colin shrugged again. "You go stop her. She'll just start crying at you."

I picked up a piece of paper from the center of the table, and reached into the crayon box and pulled one out at random. Pink. I put it back and took out a green instead. "What are you doing?" Colin asked, as he pulled out another sheet of paper-this one a partially inked, detailed drawing of a Celtic willow-and a pen and started to outline.

"I want to win over a girl." I said, thoughtfully. Colin started to laugh. "What? A girl? Are you nuts?"

I glanced at him. "She's my babysitter, actually." I said offhandedly. Colin laughed harder, resting his head on the table, his shoulders shaking. "Dude, you have no chance." he informed me, clapping me on the shoulder. I forced myself to not bristle at the unwelcome contact. Stephanie was the only person I wanted to touch indiscriminately. "She's, like, sixteen, right?"

"Around there." I allowed, too embarrassed to admit I had no idea how old Stephanie was. "Maybe a little older." Maybe a lot. Colin shook his head. "No chance." he repeated. "No chance. You will join the league of sad little boys who crushed for years on their babysitter before being shunted to the side for a boyfriend who's actually gone through puberty."

I went back to my paper, determined to ignore him if that was how he was going to be. Colin leaned over my shoulder. "Well, you need a game plan." he informed me. I arched one eyebrow. "What?" Colin asked defensively. "You're my best friend; however doomed your cause is, I'm honor-bound to help you!"

"Help me by leaving me alone."

"As if!" Colin jostled my shoulder. "Let's brainstorm ways to charm her!"

Over the next hour, he suggested being adorable, being pathetic, and "awakening her motherly instincts". I suggested reasoning, blackmailing, and "manipulating her female emotions". After some deliberation, we agreed that they were tantamount to the same thing, and none of them would work, anyway. Colin favored the blunt method-asking her out point-blank-until I mentioned that I'd already tried that; and then he dragged the whole sorry story out of me. When I was done, I noticed a strange glint in his eye. I'll admit that I'm rubbish with people, but even I could tell that he was up to something.

"Sleep over my place tonight." was all he would say. "I think I have a plan."

Dick was all for my integration into the human race. He dropped me off at Colin's at six-oh-two, nearly twenty-five minutes early, and winked a lot as he told me to 'have a good night'. He appeared to be under the impression that Colin and I were going to get up to some kind of trouble-whether with girls or exploding things or both, I couldn't discern.

Colin's foster parents were nice enough, though I didn't know them well, and they left around six thirty without saying where they were going or when they'd be back. According to Colin, this was normal. Hearing that, all I could think of was how Stephanie would go out of her way to find me and tell me she was going out to check the mail, on the off chance that I actually cared enough to go looking for her if she wasn't in the house. Usually it was annoying, but it struck me as something decent to do when I heard otherwise.

We had leftover spaghetti for supper and watched _Dr. Phil_ as we ate. Colin didn't mention his grand plan at all(causing me to suspect it was a ruse to get me to act like a "normal boy")until we'd washed the dishes and retreated to his room. He locked the door and sat cross-legged on his bed, motioning for me to do the same. I raised one eyebrow. "Thusfar you are not instilling confidence."

"Just go with it." he scolded. I sat.

"So, I was thinking," Colin began, which was never a good place to start. "Your dad is out of town, right?"

"With my sister, yes." On Bruce's insistence, practically every member of the household was a "brother" or "sister" to the outside world-except Alfred, who just could not be explained. I wasn't fond of the practice, but it did come in handy when having to explain to, say, a daycare worker why my barely legal "sister" was late picking me up.

"And your brother is taking care of you?"

"About right."

Colin knew about my being Robin, but he religiously stuck to the system, at times pretending to not even know the names of my "siblings". I think that he was secretly terrified that Batman would track him down and somehow wipe the knowledge out of his brain(as useful as that technology would be, no, it cannot be done. Yet.).

"And all of your other family is tied up, right?"

"Some quite literally, yes. I believe that Jason is in town, but he's not much into childcare."

"No crap. My point is, other than Dick, Steph's the only one around to take care of you, right?"

"That's how this situation emerged." I was starting to get tired of the conversation. Colin must have sensed it, because he jumped to the point right away.

"Well, what if something happened to make Dick go away again?"

He was a genius.

I stared at him, impressed and surprised that I was impressed. Colin looked uncomfortable. "What? Is it that stupid?"

I wanted to tell him it was brilliant, but it wasn't in my nature, so instead I nodded and said, as graciously as I could, "I suppose it could work."

Colin leapt up and grabbed a messy stack of papers from the floor, coming back and sitting next to me. He spread them out, and began detailing a complex plan he'd come up with to draw Dick away from Gotham without us being connected to the incident in any way. I swept his plan away with a flick of my hand. "That's too complicated." I grinned, animated for the first time in what felt like forever; alive with the spark I'd missed, the feel of a challenge, a _real_ challenge, not just tracking down some lady's hotel room. "I have a better idea."


	12. Night 10-Part 1

_(a/n-this chapter is boring, IMO. I got the idea for the Batfamily's email account from a book that I read so long ago, I can't remember what it was about. So I can't give it proper credit, sorry. The four who share the address are Bruce, Damian, Dick(who also has his own separate account), and Tim. I feel like I didn't explain the system well. Anyway, I'm really glad for all the people who seem to be enjoying this story-I didn't expect to get even 100 views, let alone 1,000. I know that's probably small potatoes for some of the authors here, but for me it's reason to break my diet and bring on the chocolate cake! Thanks to everyone who shares the Steph/Damian love-kisses all 'round.)_

Night 10

By the time Dick swung by to take me back to the Manor, Colin and I had a plan. We'd plotted for most of the night, fell asleep, and woke up around noon to eat cold cereal and watch televised church services and ads for "as seen on TV" products. As for our plan, well, we didn't mention it; as if what had been conceived in the darkness faded once morning shone on it-but I hadn't forgotten.

It did occur to me, once again, to just let things be. To allow Stephanie to go on with her life, and to go on with my own, and to, just once, listen to what she told me to do. I did consider simply permitting her to drop out of my world as dramatically as she'd dropped in; but in the end, my selfishness won out. I did not want to see a world that did not welcome her, and obsession over her had become a practice I couldn't break. I stopped trying to think about the reasoning behind my need, the feeling behind my drive, and simply accepted it as fact. I did not think I was in love with her. I felt it.

The phone rang almost as soon as we entered the building; I made sure I was the one to answer it. Dick looked confused for a minute, but his features smoothed out as I talked.

"Hello? . . . Father? . . . Yes, everything's fine over here."

Dick gestured for the phone, as I knew he would. I pretended not to see him at first.

"You need . . . what? You're breaking up. Father?"

Dick gestured more urgently. I handed him the phone just as Colin, on the other end, pressed the dial tone on his wall phone. All Dick heard was a high pitched buzz, and then a click as the call disconnected.

"Damn it!" Dick swore, then turned to me. "What did he say? What was up?" He sounded genuinely worried, which made me feel guilty for perhaps a tenth of a second. Then I got over it.

"There was a lot of static and background noise." I lied. "All I heard was that he needed something. Maybe you should try to email him." I suggested. This would be the tricky part; I had carefully instructed Colin on how to get past the firewalls and other protections on our email account; but I couldn't be sure he could do it. I would have done it myself, but the trail left by any of the computers in the Manor would be too obvious to anyone who might look-and Dick would. He would check the computer signature, the date published, and the user who had logged in, before he would even consider believing the email was from Bruce.

Four of us shared the same email address; that way any one of us could leave a message for the others simply by saving a rough draft in the PUBLISH box. No emails were sent, so there was no trail to track back to anyone; and any messages left were left in code. It was a system that required almost constant monitering, but the security was worth it; unless one of us betrayed the others.

Like I had.

I once again pushed back guilt. Colin could be trusted, and he would probably forget what I'd told him before the job was even done. I had to open up more to people, as Stephanie constantly told me. I had to learn that some people were worth trusting.

When Dick opened up the account, an email from Bruce was waiting, dated only a few minutes before-the timing was key. I had calculated the approximate amount of time it would have taken for Bruce to realize his call hadn't gone through, connect his laptop to the Internet, log in to the account, and write the email; maybe overkill, maybe the detail that would convince Dick of the ruse. I couldn't afford to make mistakes, because if he suspected even a little that something was amiss, there would be a ballistic Nightwing on my hands, out-of-control and under the impression that there was a serious crisis afoot.

_Trouble. Come immediately._

I had instructed Colin to keep it short-Bruce was concise-and to not make it out to be that big of a deal. Dick was an expert at reading between the lines where his foster father was concerned. He would be able to discern the real message without a hitch-whether it was there or not. I was rather impressed with myself, using our family's paranoia against them.

As soon as I saw Dick was reading the message, I slipped away to my room to write an email of my own, to Bruce. My father would doubtless go a step farther than Dick, making sure only four IP addresses had signed in to the account, that one of them had been signed in at the time the email had been written, and maybe even that a family member had been inside Wayne Manor at the same time. He would think it was odd if it had come from my computer, though, which is why I used Dick's filched Notebook.

I had been home barely ten minutes, and already I was tired.

_Yo, Bruce-_

_ Everything's cool on this end, so I thought I'd fly over to M'Bali and give you guys a hand. Just giving you a heads up-see you soon,_

_ DG _

I did my best to infuse a general tone of upbeatedness, but I wasn't sure how easy it would be to fool my father. The plan was reckless and sloppy, but I had to have faith that it would work. Already in my mind there was no other choice.

Dick called for me just as I was slipping his laptop back where I'd found it, knowing that he'd be contacting Stephanie soon via email.

I went to him. "Yes?" I tried to sound impatient, as if he'd disturbed my very important activities.

Dick folded his arms. "I just got an email from Bruce." he said, his voice and face indiscernible. "He's in trouble."

"I'll pack my bags immediately." It was important that I react the way I normally would if my father was in danger; assuming that I would be going, too. Here, though, was the tricky part-if Dick acquiesced, then I would have to implement part two of the plan.

Fortunately, he still seemed to be hell-bent on protecting me from myself this week. "No, Damian. You should stay here-if B-man wanted you with him, he would have taken you. He left you here to keep you safe, so I'm going to respect his wishes."

Actually, he left me because he was working with an old flame of his-as if I didn't know he'd been with women other than my mother. I knew that, and I knew he didn't love my mother. I wasn't that much of a child. "I can go." I offered.

That was, of course, the final straw. "Nope. I'm calling Steph, and she's going to come and take care of you."

"Why don't you email her?" I asked innocently. "I think her phone's down."

"Fine, fine." Dick headed off to his room to email her, from the laptop that I'd just replaced. I slipped into my room and remotely logged on to his computer. While I was on it, I had killed his Internet. Hopefully he wouldn't notice.

I watched him type off the email and send it; waited ten minutes; and then replied that I(Stephanie)would be able to come, but only after my(Stephanie's)shift.

Dick accepted this, and then, an eternity and two seconds later, he was gone. And I was alone, the way I'd wanted all along. If I'd known how simple it would be to not have a babysitter, then I would have done it from the beginning.

But, then, I wouldn't have had Stephanie..

I called her as soon as Dick was out of sight.

"Damian, I don't really want to talk to you." she said, after we'd gotten over the hello-hello formalities.

"Come get me." I said. "Dick had to go-I'm alone."

There was a long pause, then Stephanie said, reluctantly, "You can take care of yourself." and hung up.

And then I really was alone.

Shellshocked, I called Colin.

"Hello?"

"She said no. She left me. Again!" I spat out.

There was a beat.

"Tough luck." Colin finally said.

"Colin!"

"Well, dude, I warned you!" he paused, apparently trying to asses how upset I was. "For what it's worth, I'm sorry."

The door slammed open. "Damian Wayne, you had better have a hell of a good explanation!" Stephanie hollered.

"I'll call you back." I told Colin, trying to keep the smile out of my voice. He snickered for the both of us.

"I'm in here." I called. Stephanie came storming in minutes later, still dressed in her McDonald's uniform. "Get in the car, and we'll talk then." she snarled. I followed her meekly and got in the car.

"I'm calling Dick." Stephanie said, reaching for her Bluetooth.

"Not while you're driving." I said, the words rolling off my tongue easily-scarily easily. Lying to Stephanie shouldn't be easy; it should violate a law of the universe; but when it was for this purpose, I couldn't bring myself to care. "You can call him after your shift."

"How do you know I have a shift?"

"You're wearing your uniform."

"Oh. Am I?" Stephanie looked down at herself in surprise.

"Look at the road!" I said, alarmed, as she began to veer into the other lane.

"Whoops." Stephanie veered back, then glanced at me. "Well. What am I going to do with you?"

"Take me home with you?" I suggested innocently. Stephanie chose-rather diplomatically, I thought-not to answer that, instead glancing over her shoulder and changing lanes to turn into the McDonald's. "Look, I came over on my break, so you're going to have to hang out here for a while." she said, sounding as if that were as pleasant as pulling fingernails. "Afterwards, I'll call Dick and get this mess sorted out."

I, also diplomatically, didn't answer _that_. Anything I had to say-from _Dick's on a plane to Africa_ to _He thinks that you agreed to babysit me again_-would just upset her needlessly. I'd simply have to come up with a way to distract her later on.

Fun.


	13. Night 10-Part 2

Stephanie pushed ahead of me into the McDonald's, yelling at Kara to punch her in(whatever that meant)and disappearing behind a swinging door that read _Employees Only_. I followed her nonetheless, until I was detained by a weasly, greasy, red-haired boy who looked even younger than Stephanie, snapping at me to "Get the hell out of my kitchen!". Apparently he was in charge. I was not impressed, proceeded to tell him so, and that's how I ended up sitting in the Playplace area with a box of broken crayons and a _My Little Pony_ coloring book that had half of its pages ripped out. I called Colin once more.

"Help. I'm being held hostage."

"Sounds like fun. Things going well, then?"

Before I could explain the whole story, or even come up with a withering retort, Stephanie emerged from behind the door again, pushing a mop bucket in front of her. She called something insulting over her shoulder to the girl at the cash register, and then started mopping the floor. I told Colin that we'd talk later and discreetly made my way over to her.

"How long is this going to take?" I asked, kneeling on a chair so that she could mop around the bottom. Stephanie shrugged. She looked tired, and I felt guilty-truly guilty, the kind that took up permanent residence in my stomach, gnawing out the bottom like an underfed rat. Her hair was falling out of her messy ponytail in sweaty straggles, and there was a resigned set to her shoulders that didn't fit with the nonstop chipper(and thereby annoying)partner that I knew.

"Mopping? Maybe an hour." she replied. "My shift? No idea." There were bags under her eyes. I reached out a hand to-I don't know, comfort her or something-and she jerked away, too abrupt to be as casual as she tried to play it off as. "Please, just be patient, Dami." she said, moving past me.

I went back to the Playplace. There were no customers in the restaurant, and after a few minutes, Kara brought me a Big Mac, courtesy of the " assistant manager" who'd yelled me out of the kitchen. She said it was an apology; I told her I didn't accept, and I preferred chicken nuggets instead. She brought me a Happy Meal.

Stephanie reached my chair just as I unwrapped the cheesy toy inside-to my amusement, it was a plastic replica of Batman, fully jointed. There was something empowering about jerking around its limbs and making it do suicide jumps off of my Big Gulp-I wondered if there were any Nightwing or Batgirl figurines around.

"Aw, so he _is_ just a kid inside." Stephanie teased as she swabbed around my chair. I drew my legs up, scowled, and threw the wrapper at her. She laughed and threw it back, and when I waved my Batman threateningly at her, she made as if to dump my cup on my head. Kara threw a box of straws at us both, yelling, "If you've got time to play, you've got time to work!"

I filled the straw and napkin dispensers, and then leaned on the counter, practicing my "social skills" with the girl at the register, Rachel. She was extremely nice. She kept giggling and twirling her hair as she talked to me, sometimes slipping in a comment about how cute and smart I was. I wasn't sure about the cute part, but it was nice to have my genius appreciated by _someone_ for once.

"You'd better not be bugging her." Steph warned as she went by on her way to the back. She pushed through the door, and appeared a second later behind the counter, squeezing behind Rachel to wheel the mop and bucket to some back room I wasn't allowed to see, judging by the two large swinging doors she had to go through, which were emblazoned with that irritating _Employees Only_ motif and looked downright sinister.

"I'm behaving perfectly." I retorted when she came out, and Rachel giggled. "He's an angel." she cooed.

Stephanie rolled her eyes. "I'm gonna be sick." She looked it, too.

"Less talking, more cleaning!" Assistant Manager hollered from somewhere in the mysterious _Employees Only_ zone.

Kara came out from around the fryolator, wiping her hands on a paper towel, and informed the assembled company that, "any fresh sandwiches will no longer be available, because our oven just decided to take a dirt nap."

Blank stares greeted this statement. The Assistant Manager poked his head out from the back, his expression one of horrified shock. Stephanie looked downright tragic, seeing as it was just the breakdown of a second-rate microwave oven that had probably been on its last legs when it was new. Kara threw up her hand. "I don't know what happened-it just went kaput!"

"This will cost a fortune." the AM moaned. "I'll call the repair crew."

"It's just an oven." I pointed out the obvious. "Why can't any of you fix it?"

It was my turn to be greeted with clueless looks. Apparently no one knew how to fix an oven. I shook my head. "Morons." I muttered, unable to contain my disgust. I went through the first _Employees Only_ door, slid easily past Stephanie, Rachel, and Kara, and went to inspect the oven. I really couldn't believe that not a one of them knew how to maintenence a toaster oven, especially when it was so important to the running of the restaurant.

"The waveguide needs to be cleaned." I scoffed, shaking my head again and pointing out the obvious buildup of grease that was caking the conductor. I grabbed the nearest paper towel, making faces as I wiped off the layers of fat that could compete with any archaeological dig. When I was done, however, the microwave sputtered to life when I pushed one of its many confusing buttons. I charged Kara with the remainder of the cleaning, washed my hands, and went back to the Playplace.

"That was pretty cool, back there." Stephanie told me, about three hours later as we finally left the fast food joint. It was just starting to get dark, orange sunlight kissing the pavement we crossed to enter her sunlit car. Stripes of shadows crossed the windshield on our drive home, with total darkness in one window, and the burning light of the setting sun in the other. Watching it, I could see why ancient peoples believed the sun to combust every night, the world to be reborn in fire.

"It was a problem so simple, it was laughable. I didn't even need to think." I replied, eons too late. We'd been driving for long enough that the building of Gotham City had trailed away, replaced with trees and fields and suburban houses. We were on our way to the Manor, I realized. Stephanie was taking us home.

"Still. Nobody even knew what a waveguide was."

"That's simple, as I said. It's the conductor of the heat generated by the capacitor-" I rambled on about how microwaves worked, despite the way Stephanie's eyes glazed over after the first few sentences. I didn't want there to be silence in that car. It gave too much time to think of things like calling my brother, or worse, my father. And, too, it gave me far too much time to think of how wrong things were going between Stephanie and I; and I was sick and tired of thinking about _that_. I just wanted to be with Steph-why was that so hard? Why did I have to lie and trick and connive my way into her heart, when she was the one who had forcibly dragged me into it in the first place?

It wasn't fair.

"What isn't fair, Dami?" Stephanie asked, and I realized I'd said my last thought aloud.

"The way people spread myths about microwave ovens causing cancer." I lied, badly. "It just isn't fair to those who worked so hard to bring the radiation cooker into being."

"Liar." she called me out, parking beside the Manor. I got out. I was remembering another time that we came home when it was sunset like this, a time when I fearlessly put my arm around her to help her into the house, she was so tired-a time when I didn't think I was in love with her, and when touch was simply a human experience with no feelings attached.

This time, I kept my distance from Stephanie, and she wasn't too tired to make dinner, and by the time we finished our makeshift supper of canned beans and brown bread, she had remembered about Dick.

"Don't call." I blurted out, just as her hand touched the wall phone. Stephanie glanced at me, eyebrows raised.

I slid back my chair, going to her. "Please, Stephanie. You know he'll be back. Please . . . stay." My cheeks were burning. I'd never made myself so ridiculous, so vulnerable, in my life. Steph's voice sounded like how I felt; broken, tenuous, scared. Desperate.

"No. You know I can't."

"You don't sound sure." I was begging pathetically, but this was all I had. I couldn't go through with tricking her. I couldn't just play around with her feelings-it was misguided and wrong and against everything she'd taught me. I didn't want her to take me because there was no other choice or because I'd manipulated her into it; too late, I realized that. Too late, I realized that all along I'd just been hurt because she _didn't_ choose me, didn't want me like I wanted her. I took a step back. "Bruce is due back in a few days. You don't have to stay; I'll be fine. I just . . . want you here."

I left it at that. I mean, there was only so much I could do. I wasn't going to make even more of a fool of myself. I scraped the leftovers of dinner into a container and put them away in the fridge. Stephanie was still standing by the phone, looking shellshocked.

"What's wrong with you? Saw your own reflection?" I asked, insulting by default. She shook her head, as if to clear away smoke, and cleared the table. No mention was made of her staying or leaving, but after we were done cleaning, we sat down in the living room to watch the entire first season of _American Horror Story_. Stephanie cried during most of the so-called frightening parts, which I found laughable coming from a girl who'd once started a gang war all on her own.

Maybe it was midnight; maybe it was a little before or after that. The TV had gone dark, and quiet, and maybe I had been asleep; but then, maybe I hadn't. There was the rough feel of the couch at my back, and the lightest brush of Stephanie's arm against mine-was she asleep? I put my hand on her knee, intending to find out, and suddenly we were kissing, kissing in the dark, her bare skin sliding against mine-stumbling down the hall, falling into a bed of rumpled clothes and sheets that smelled like laundry detergent; silky hair over my chest and ragged breathing, an awareness of something outside myself.

Kissing in the dark.

Finding the places on Stephanie's body that I normally knew by sight, letting myself just feel without thinking for a second-a feeling that gave me hope that maybe even someone like me could be redeemed, could want to be redeemed-finding a purpose in the salt I licked off of her skin and the feel of her lips, her hands at my back, my shoulders; I was loved. I was loved. It was the most beautiful thing I'd heard, seen, felt, and maybe I cried, tears kissed away by soft lips, wiped away by tired hands, maybe she drew me in and held me so closely I felt for a second like I would never be alone again, like I was loved.

But maybe it was just a dream.


	14. Night 11

Night 11

"I can't do this."

Stephanie was sitting upright next to me, a sheet pulled over her knees and across her chest. The sun was just beginning to rise, showing clearly through the window that had never had curtains closed over it. After the past night, I was grateful of the tree cover that prevented any casual snoopers from seeing into the Manor windows.

"Can't do . . . ?" I sat up, too, fumbling to find my pants among the tossed sheets. If I was going to argue with Stephanie, I wanted to be dressed in something other than boxers and a t-shirt-but I didn't want to argue with her. I was sick of going around in circles, trying to convince her to take a chance on something that I wasn't even sure would work. I was tired of having to fight for every moment I had with her, even if every one of those moments was gold, food for my affection-starved heart.

I knew it now, that I lacked love; the kind of pure, unselfish love that Stephanie had given me from day one-and now I craved it, needed it, wanted it as I imagined an addict wanted the drug of his choice. It drove me to lie to my father and mentor and even the object of my love-it made me feel half-crazy but also asleep in my own skin, worn out to the point where I just wanted to collapse into my bed and forget about the whole business.

"I can't . . . pretend." she said, finally.

"Is that what you were doing last night?" The words formed in my mouth and rolled off of my tongue easily, but they left my throat feeling knitted over with cotton. "Pretending?"

"What?!" Stephanie turned her head so fast I wondered that she didn't snap her neck. Her blue eyes were wide, almost panicked. "No! Absolutely not!"

I raised an eyebrow, murmuring, "Methinks the lady doth protest . . . ?"

She blushed. "Honest, that wasn't what I meant. Damian-" she took my hand, knotting our fingers together, holding on so tightly that her knuckles turned white and my joints felt as though they were grinding together. "I can't pretend anymore that . . . that I can walk away. That I can say that you don't mean anything to me-that I can let you go."

I had been holding my breath without realizing it; now I let it go, daring to hope. Hope. A funny word, one that I'd never thought about much. My world had never had room for hope before. "Stephanie-Steph. Do you mean that . . ." Apparently, finishing my sentences was too much work this morning, because the sweater in my trachea returned with a vengeance.

She arched a look at me. "Depends. I think you have to earn it."

"Earn-how?"

"C'mon, Damian. You've watched enough teen drama movies with me to know."

I took a breath. She was going to make me work for it-furthermore, she appeared bound and determined to completely humiliate me and destroy my self-image, forcing me to act totally out of character and ridiculous. "Stephanie Brown."

"Yee-es?"

"You are the most infuriating creature alive. I cannot stand you."

She dropped my hand. "You just can't be serious, can you?!"

I smiled, satisfied that I, at least, was not the only one suffering from this. I took her hand back, firmly. Maybe a little too firmly, by the way she winced, but that wasn't really my fault, was it? She was the one being all "teen drama movie". "Steph. Will you go out with me?"

I knew that that was what she wanted, but she started laughing anyway, which annoyed me. I mean, I had just swallowed just about every inch of pride that I possessed, going against every self-protection instinct I had, and she was laughing at me.

"You-sorry-" she choked out. "You just looked . . . so serious . . ."

I scowled. "I _am_ serious." Couldn't she see that this was important to me? Could it be that it wasn't important to her ? The thought hurt, unexpectedly. I hadn't spent a lot of thought on how Stephanie felt about me-in fact, I would go so far as to say that I hadn't thought it mattered. I wanted her, so I devised a plan to have her, without worrying about if she even wanted to be with me. A slight oversight, perhaps . . .

"I mean, go out where? We can't date each other!" Her laughter, I began to realize, was not really mocking me, but herself. She was releasing stress and anxiety, the way some (unreasonable)people did. She was a few tears short of hysterics, actually, clamping her hand to her mouth suddenly and rocking back and forth. Her eyes, previously wide, now claimed to outshine the moon. I caught her shoulder and drew her to me. I wasn't very experienced with the whole comfort thing, but I did my best.

"Shh. Shh." I never understood why telling people who were upset to be quiet was supposed to make them feel better-especially when telling them to calm down was a no-no-but between that and the slow, steady circles I was rubbing her shoulders with, she quieted, laying her head on my shoulder. "We'll think of something." I promised. "That is, once you answer my question."

"Your wha-oh. Yeah." she wiped tears from her cheeks and pulled away from me, sitting up again. She smiled, faintly. "Yes, Damian. I'll go out with you-or, really, stay in with you . . . which isn't all that different from what we've been doing . . ."

Purely in the interest of getting her to stop babbling, I kissed her. It seemed to bring her to her senses, because when she pulled away, she whispered, shocked, "Oh, God, are we actually doing this?"

"Yes." I informed her. "We are. And don't think I'm letting you back out on me, now."

"Never." Stephanie promised. She put her arms around my shoulders and cupped my head into her collarbone, hugging me gently. "Never, never, never, Damian." She kissed my temple. "This is for forever." she promised me.

She promised.

Nevertheless, she drove me to the daycare later that morning, claiming that she had to work. I was all for her calling in sick and staying home with me to enjoy some of the benefits of our new relationship, but Stephanie proved to be unreasonably stubborn when it came to that area of business. I believe the words she used were "Hell freezes over" and "not until you're eighteen", but I was too busy eating Cheerios to pay proper attention.

I also kissed her goodbye before exiting the car, something that made her turn as scarlet as my Robin tunic and motor out of the driveway as if the Mafia were after her. She might have also swore at me. Again, my attention was elsewhere.

Colin was waiting for me at the usual table, and I was shocked to realize that we had a usual table. I was starting to feel as at home in the brightly colored, children-filled room as I was at Wayne Manor-it unsettled me. It wasn't bad, though, having a place to belong. If I had to. I sat down with a smile on my face.

"Dude, what's up? Last I heard, someone was holding you hostage?" Colin demanded as soon as I sat down. "And now you're kind of doing a Cheshire Cat impression. It's freaky."

"Things," I said with satisfaction, "could not be better."

Colin's jaw dropped. "I thought she shot you down. Y'know-go straight to jail, do not pass go, and all that?"

I had no clue was he was talking about. I could only guess that he was referring to our second-to-last conversation, where I had told him that Stephanie had left me. Sort of. "She reconsidered." I said, a mite smugly, if I'm honest. I thought I had deserved the right to be smug, after everything. "She wasn't even angry about me lying." Because she didn't know, but I didn't add that. I didn't think it was important.

Colin's eyes were so wide, I don't think they could have been stretched back farther by eyehooks. "What happened?"

I arched an eyebrow at him. "I can't tell you in front of the children." I said, astonished to find that I was _kidding_ with him. Colin started to laugh. "Ohmy-you didn't."

"I plead the fifth."

"Damian! What _happened_?" he demanded impatiently, leaning forwards. I leaned, too, and quickly and quietly filled him in, feeling rather like a pair of gossiping girls. It was nice to have someone to brag to. It was nice to just have someone to talk to, other than Dick, who, though he was good at a great many things, had a tendency to get rather self-righteous on the topic of the opposite sex.

"Damian Wayne . . ." Colin said when I was done, and trailed off, as if he couldn't think of anything to say. "You-you-I can't believe you." he shook his head. "You _seduced_ your _babysitter._"

"Successfully." I added. "Don't leave that out."

Colin just chuckled. "We'll make a normal boy out of you, yet." he promised, and we adjourned our meeting for snack break.

I got into the car as soon as Stephanie pulled into the lot, hastily pulling off the macaroni necklace that Colin had slipped over my head on my way out. He called it a souvenir from the most outrageous Monday of his life-I called it childish, but he was my friend, now, and I humored him. Until Stephanie showed up, anyway. I had my limits, and reminding her of my age was one of them.

She didn't need my reminder. "How could you?!" she seethed, once I'd shut the door and buckled in. I looked at her in surprise. She floored the gas and pulled out of the lot without even looking for traffic. I grabbed the door handle, but she'd locked the doors.

Uh-oh. Angry Stephanie+no escape=unhappy Damian. I was no math genius, but even I could figure out that problem. "How could I what?" I often found that playing dumb got me out of several tight spots-I was innocent just enough times that the person accusing me would assume they'd made a mistake. Not Stephanie, though.

"You _lied_! You sent Dick to West Africa on a wild goose chase! Did you think we wouldn't find out?!" Stephanie ranted. "Didn't you think that Bruce would find Dick randomly joining him suspicious?! Didn't you think, even once, that maybe, just maybe, both of them were out of their mind with worry thinking that they had been set up by some enemy or other?! Bruce and Cass nearly got shot trying to reach a payphone to call the Manor-and thank God I was home or who knows what else would have happened! Did you think about that, Damian? Think about the fact that you sent Dick into a _war zone_ and nearly got all three of them _killed_?! Your family, Damian!" she yelled. "Mine, too! They contacted Tim, Alfred, anyone they could think of-all of those people are now, also, worrying about you! Did you think about that? Do you ever, _ever_, think about the consequences of your action?!"

She wound down, finally, breathing heavily and clutching the steering wheel in a death grip. "Are-are they-is everyone all right?" I asked, hesitantly. I didn't bother to deny what I'd done. I just hadn't realized-foolish me-that my actions would have such repercussions. I assumed, incorrectly, that Bruce and Dick were gods, beings that couldn't be hurt or felled by anything. I had forgotten in my weakness that they were only human.

"Everyone's fine." Stephanie muttered. "No thanks to you. Bruce, Cass, and Dick are coming back on the next flight, which isn't until next Monday due to all the unrest. Dick received a bullet in the calf, but he should be okay."

"A-bullet . . . ?"

"He took it for Bruce, when they were trying to reach that payphone I mentioned."

I swallowed. I had-what was the phrase?-screwed up. Badly. "I'm sorry, Ste-"

"Save it." she snapped. "I seriously don't want to talk to you right now. I mean-why? Why go to all those lengths, Damian? What were you thinking? What was-why . . ."

"You know why." I said, softly. There was no point in hiding or softening the blow. "I did it to get to you. And I would do much more."

"Don't!" Stephanie slammed her palm on the wheel, accidentally honking the horn, an over-loud emphasis to her words. "Don't say things like that, Damian."

"They're true. You should know that, Stephanie."

She pulled over to the side of the road, letting the cars behind her-all of them ticked at her crappy driving-pass. "Don't." she repeated, resting her forehead on her wrists. Her blond hair tumbled over her shoulders, over her brown work shirt. She must have raced to the daycare after hearing from Dick. I felt bad, truly I did. But I couldn't let up just yet: she had to see.

"You have to know." I insisted. "This is who I-"

"No! Don't say that!" she snarled, her head jerking up. "You are _not_ that person, Damian. You are . . . you are honest, and brave, and-"

"That's who you want me to be." I interrupted. "But I know that you are aware of the kind of person I really am. I never purported to be a saint. I would never send Dick, or anyone that I care about, for that matter, knowingly into danger, but that doesn't make me an angel. That doesn't make me _good_. I'm not _you_, Stephanie, I'm me, and that makes me-"

Stephanie leaned over and threw her arms around me, hugging me as she had this morning, pressing my head against her neck. "Tell me what to do." she whispered. "Tell me how to explain to Dick why I didn't contact him once I realized something was up-tell me how I'm supposed to feel." She sounded shaken, awful, but not mad any longer. I couldn't help but feel relieved about that. Her fingers dug into my shirt.

"Tell me whether I should be touched that you care about me this much, or horrified that you didn't even see the repercussions of what you did. If you know so much, tell me how I'm supposed to react. Tell me, Damian. Am I your girlfriend or your babysitter? On your side or theirs?"

"There aren't sides." I told her, taking her arms from around my neck and folding her hands in her lap. It was paltry comfort, but all that I could give. "None of this is your fault. I'll explain it to them. And, if there were sides-" I tilted her face up, brushing a light kiss over her lips. She shivered, blue eyes sparking with something-nerves? Rage? Love?. "You'd be on mine." I said, confidently.


	15. Night 12

_(a/n-this is almost done, I promise.)_

Night 12

"Up 'n at 'em!" Stephanie was banging pots in the kitchen, yelling at me, and singing along to the radio that was blaring as loud as possible. I was both grateful that we didn't have neighbors and annoyed that she was waking me up. I slammed a pillow over my head, but it didn't help much. We'd fallen asleep in front of the TV in her room the past night, curled together and feeling as though no force in the world could pull us apart. Now I rather wished she'd go away of her own accord.

"It's too early for this." I said, once dressed and in the kitchen beside her. I scowled for emphasis, but she just snickered. "This from the guy who uses chainsaws at two in the morning."

"It was a welder, and it was four in the morning." I corrected her, going to pour myself a cup of coffee. She intercepted me. "Oh-ho, no. No coffee for you."

I glared at her. "You wake me up at an ungodly hour _and_ deprive me of caffeine? I'm calling Child Protection Services."

"Coffee stunts your growth." she retorted, handing me a glass of orange juice instead. "Drink up. Cold season is in four months."

"That's an urban legend." I informed her. "And there's no such thing as a season for colds."

"Tell that to my mother." she tossed over her shoulder, returning to the toast she was frying. "She judges seasons by what sickness you could get-allergy, cold, flu, and heatstroke."

"Heatstroke isn't a sickness." I joined her at the stove. "What are you doing to a perfectly innocent loaf of bread?"

"It's French toast." she said indignantly. "It's almost better than waffles."

I cocked an eyebrow at her. "Such a thing is possible?" I asked, mock scandalized. She waved her spatula at me. "Shut up, you."

"_You_," I drawled, too happy to let it go. "Such a . . . _stinging_ blow. A truly low jibe. I felt it-right here." I thumped my chest. All that movie watching was doing wonders for my sense of humor; something Stephanie failed to appreciate. She shoved me and repeated,"Shut up." She whisked eggs in a bowl and dropped the bread in, then put the slices on the fry pan. "What's got you in such a good mood, anyway?"

I wrapped my arms around her waist, resting my chin on her shoulder. She was dressed in her pre-work clothes-jeans and a tank top, hair already tied back in a neat ponytail. "I'd answer that, but you'd be late for work." I whispered in her ear, slipping her hair tie out of its loops. She shook me off. "Damian!"

A second later, we were kissing. I had to admit, there were perks to . . . well, everything about Stephanie's presence. I barely even felt the absence of coffee, too busy tasting her tongue.

The smoke detector went off. "Shoot!" Stephanie pushed me away and hurried to rescue her now black toast. I tried not to smirk. She glared at me, before glancing at the clock. "Double shoot! Get your shoes-we have to go!"

"We never have a proper breakfast around here." I complained, slipping my sneakers on. Stephanie shoved two unburned pieces of fried bread in my hand and towed me out the door, grabbing her keys and shirt as she went. She slipped it on in the driveway and took me to the daycare. This time, she didn't flinch when I kissed her goodbye, just smiled distractedly and gunned it out of there.

She'd been late to work pretty much every day since taking me on-I hoped she wouldn't get in trouble. Then again, if she was fired, that was more time spent with me. A plus.

I didn't go into the daycare, opting instead to patrol the city. I'd been shamefully neglecting my duties as Robin, though there had been nothing in the news or papers to alert me to any particular trouble. Still, my father would be disappointed when he found out.

I remembered, too late, that he was already upset about the business with Dick. I'd totally forgot in the wake of Happy Life With Stephanie mode. I had less than a week until all of this came to an end. With two guardians and a nosy foster sister and brother around, it would be much harder to hide a relationship with Stephanie. And if they found out-well, it wouldn't be good, I knew that. I had a lot of pull with my father, and got away with a lot of things that other boys my age never would, but somehow I had a feeling that Bruce would feel a lot more strongly about my dating my babysitter than my keeping a blowtorch under my bed.

Eleven. What a truly awful age to be. Not a child, not an adult, not even an awkward adolescent. I sat on a rooftop, patrolling the city the last thing on my mind, and mulled the issue over. Even if Stephanie really did stick with me forever, like she said, she would be waiting-for me to enter high school, to graduate, to become legally old enough to drink and to marry. She would be more waiting for me forever than staying with me.

Maybe it was the stress getting to me, or lack of sleep, or too many late-night matinees,but it occurred to me that age differences were easier when falling in love with vampires. Vampires have eternity to wait, and then they can turn you into a vampire, too, so that the two of you can be together forever. It's possible to catch up with a vampire.

I couldn't catch up with Stephanie.

I tossed pebbles at the windows of the neighboring apartment until the sun set. I couldn't get around the fact that Stephanie was always going to be seven, eight years older than me, and that by gambling everything to be with her, I had subsequently ticked off every other person I cared about.

Well, except maybe Colin, but given my luck in the past week, I was sure he'd be angry with me for skipping out on daycare. Somehow, I couldn't bring myself to slap together paper mache and make cards for my invisible parents while knowing that my time with Stephanie had an expiration date.

When I finally went home, Stephanie was waiting. She sat at the kitchen table, nursing a clear glass of amber liquid from Bruce's stock. She looked up at me with tired eyes, shook her head, and went back to drinking.

"Steph-" I began, but she held up a hand to stop me.

"Enough, Damian." she downed the rest of her glass. "I don't want to hear it." She dumped her glass in the sink and went to leave the room, pausing beside me for a second. "I was worried, at first, you know?" she said, in a too-bright voice that scared me. She sounded like she was pretending to be okay, and Stephanie never did that. "When I went to the daycare and you weren't there. But then I realized," her voice turned sour. "There's no point in worrying about you, Damian. You just do whatever the hell you want, and you obviously don't care about anyone else. Why should I care about you?"

The rational part of me knew that she was just partially drunk and trying to get back at me for scaring her, but it still hurt when she slammed the door of her bedroom shut.

She was gone when I woke up the next day.


	16. Night 13

Night 13

"Thought you'd be here. You like high places."

I rested my chin on my knees, determined not to care as Stephanie came up from behind me, sitting next to me on the roof. She looked out over the view and sighed. "Beautiful."

I refused to speak or even look at her. If she could be mad at me for not going to a daycare, then I could certainly be upset that she checked out of my life for over a day. I ignored the way her costume hugged the curves of her body or the way her blond hair spilled out like gold from under her cowl.

"Thanks for keeping up with the patrols. Helping to make Gotham a safer place, and all that."

Really? I couldn't help the dirty look that I gave her.

"Okay, okay, I fold." Steph held up her hands in mock defeat. "I'm sorry. I bailed on you, and-I was mad, Dami, okay? I was mad. You scared me, and-I don't know. I don't even know where I stand anymore." she shook her head. "But running away wasn't right. So, I'm sorry."

"If you had been gone for one hour longer, I would have started to panic." I told her, softly. I would have spoken at a normal level, as I'm never one for dramatic effect, but my voice refused to go louder without breaking, and if my voice broke, my will might have, as well, and I would have cried, like the pathetic little child that I was petrified I was turning into. It seemed that Stephanie and I could never truly see eye to eye. We kept having this same conversation, missing each other's points in the same way. We were trying, at least. We were trying.

"I would have searched the city for you. And when I didn't find you, I would have called Bruce. Only, he's stuck in Africa and can't do anything, so I would have gone to Tim. He would have, also, panicked, and probably have brought a whole platoon of his friends in the Titans to help search for you. Then the Justice League would have gotten wind of it, and-"

"Okay, okay!" Stephanie sounded annoyed, but also chastised. "I get it. Repercussions. Throwing my lecture back in my face. We both have some growing up to do."

"I'm sorry, too." I added. "Next time I will let you know if I don't want to go to the daycare. I needed a break."

"Yeah, I did, too." Stephanie put her arm around me. I pulled back. "Not with masks, Brown!" How could she have forgotten such an elementary rule?

Stephanie rolled her eyes. "Anyone listening in on our conversation would already know way too much about our life, Dami. For one thing, we've been calling each other by our names. And also some _other_ people's real names."

There was no good reply to that. Even I sometimes blurred the line between my personal and public life-maybe because before, I'd never had a personal life to kept secret. "Let's go home. I'm hungry."

"Nono-let's go to Denny's." Stephanie started to strip off her costume. I stared at her in horror as she changed into civilian clothing in full view of any snipers in the neighboring roofs.

"Denny's?" was the only thing I could think of.

"Yeah. Get some big, greasy breakfast doused in syrup. It's hump day-let's celebrate." Stephanie tugged a jean jacket on over her t-shirt.

" . . . hump day?" I'd been subconsciously changing along with her. Now I removed my mask and tucked it into the pocket of my jeans before stuffing my costume into the backpack I'd taken to carrying around with me.

"Wednesday. Y'know, like, the middle of the week? It's all downhill from here?" Stephanie hopped onto the fire escape and started to descend. I followed her without replying-sometimes it was best to just go along with her delusions.

"And then I just called you and told you Dick was gone." I finished. "It was surprisingly easy."

Stephanie frowned. "You trusted Colin with your father's passwords?"

I looked down at my plate, now empty of the stack of pancakes it had arrived with, and felt heat blossom over my cheekbones. "Was that wrong?"

"No! Gosh, no. I was just surprised-and impressed. Impressed, too." Steph added hastily, sticking her last bite of bacon in her mouth. I somehow envied the bacon. I hadn't been that close to her lips in nearly two days, and I was starting to feel detached from her. I didn't want my relationship with her to be built around the physical, but that didn't change the way both my body and heart craved to be close to her again.

"You don't have to lie." I said to her, teasingly. It was getting easier and easier to joke around with her the more time I spent with her, especially when she pouted at me, her soft, pink lips pursing, eyebrows furrowed over her clear gaze.

"I would never." she said, mock indignant. I smiled, but refrained from telling her that she just had. I doubted that starting an argument was the best way to conclude our first date.

First date. There was something so . . . childish about the term. I couldn't ever see myself "dating"-going to movies or dinner or bringing Stephanie flowers. She'd probably laugh in my face if I tried-and I would certainly deserve it. But maybe we didn't need to "date". Maybe we just needed to be together.

Stephanie must have been following my train of thought, because she reached across the table and grasped my hand. "I love you, Damian. Nothing's going to change that-and that isn't a lie!" she laughed at the end, making light of her statement, but I could still see the gravity in her eyes. She meant it. We'd fought like hell to get there, to that diner booth, laughing over bacon and lies and trust issues, and neither of us wanted to give it up; even though there was an awful feeling in my gut that we were fighting the inevitable. Maybe she sensed it, too-maybe that's why she said what she did.

"It's been a long two weeks." I said, instead of all that sedimental tripe, and Steph nodded in agreement. "I think I aged ten years." she conceded.

"Great. More years to keep us apart." I slid out of the booth, grabbing my coat. She did the same, and we left, walking out and down the street, still holding hands. To me, it felt silly and pretentious, as if we had to broadcast to the world that we were together, but Stephanie looked happier with every step she took.

She stopped in front of a thrift shop and stared at me for a second.

"What?" I asked, a little defensively. The intensity of her gaze made me nervous.

"You've grown!" she said, sounding shocked. "Look!" She made us stand toe-to-toe, in the middle of a busy sidewalk, to measure. It was true-I came up to her eye level now. In a few months, I might even be able to look her in the face without tilting my head up.

"Humans do have a tendency to an increased growth rate in their pubescent years." I reminded her. Stephanie made a face. "Don't even start, Dami. Don't even start."

"Wait until I'm as tall as my father." I said, a little proudly, as we resumed walking, getting fewer dirty looks now that we weren't holding up foot traffic. "Then you will be sorry for all the years you bullied me."

"Bullied? I never!" she protested, laughing. "I was giving you the sibling rivalry you never had. It was character building."

"It was _annoying_."

"Pfft. You loved it."

"No." I tightened my grip on her hand. "I loved you."

She gave me a sideways glance. "You just had to make it serious."

"I love you." I shrugged. "It's just a fact. I'm just stating a fact."

Stephanie sighed. "I still wonder, you know, if we're doing the right thing."

"Pfft." It was my turn to scoff. "I am not going to pointlessly try to suppress your fears that I'm some sexually deficient child. I am not going to try to convince you that we're doing the right thing. No one is being _hurt_ in this situation, Stephanie. Think on that."

She didn't say anything. Maybe she was thinking. I hoped so. It could have been that my moral compass was slightly skewed from my somewhat colorful formative years, but I honestly couldn't see what was so wrong with two people loving each other.

I could see, maybe, where it wouldn't be a good idea for her to babysit me again, what with all of the chaos of the past two weeks; but maybe that would have happened anyway. I could see the world telling us to wait, and I could understand that. Maybe going on dates, and bringing flowers, and all of that, would have to wait until I was older; but in the meantime she was here, wasn't she? She was with me. That was all that mattered.

I couldn't imagine, didn't even to think to imagine, a world where Stephanie and I would be separated.


	17. Night 14-Part 1

Night 14

She didn't know that I was awake. I watched through my eyelashes as her eyes traveled up and down my sleeping body. I couldn't read the expression on her face-she looked sad, but also hopeful, as if she was looking down at a starving puppy she was trying to save. She reached up and brushed my hair away from my forehead, leaving a kiss in its place. She was pale against the dark sheets of my bed, her hair glowing blond where it strayed over my navy blue t-shirt. Her head was tilted to one side, and I clearly saw the soft sheen of her pale pink nails when she cupped my face with her hand. She looked for all the world like an angel trapped in the hell of her choice. If I was dark, with my mother's complexion and father's steely eyes, she was the very essence of light. I wanted to open my eyes fully and soak her in, but I didn't dare. If she knew I was awake, she might leave. She herself had imposed the rule that we should stay out of each other's bedrooms from then on.

She wanted to take things slow, while I wanted everything right away. She wanted to have rules, where I felt more reckless than I ever had in my whole life. She wanted to be careful, while I wanted to scream to the whole world that I had finally landed the girl who literally haunted my dreams.

I did what she wanted, though.

We were back at her mom's house. Stephanie had felt that it would be better for her mother to watch after me, no longer trusting herself with my care. I didn't object; her mom baked cookies and called me honey and made me clean the toilet if I talked back. It was nice . . . and kind of normal. Maybe it was only until Dick got back, but it was the kind of life I could easily get used to.

Stephanie leaned over and kissed my forehead again, and I did open my eyes that time, giving in to the urge to soak in her image. The knees of her jeans were worn through, and the t-shirt she wore was mine; one that Colin had bought me too many weeks ago and I'd never worn. For some reason there were scowling birds on the front. Some people really will buy anything.

"You need new jeans." I pointed out. Stephanie looked surprised, as if she hadn't expected me to be awake, and then she smiled. "Yeah, well, take a gander at your sneakers." she chuckled, gesturing towards my old, beat-up DCs. Bruce wasn't exactly consistent about shopping, and I just plain didn't care. "We'll go shopping on Monday, when Bruce comes home. We'll get new jeans for me and some Vans for you. Maybe then you'll look halfway normal."

I squinted up at her. "You make that sound like something desirable."

Stephanie laughed for real, and I sat up, forcing the drowsy out of my system. It was morning. "Were you here all night?" I had to ask, half-hoping she had been. Steph shook her head. "No way. I opened this morning. Just got back." She pointed to her work shirt, crumpled on the floor. "I do admit to coming straight here, though. Mom's still asleep, and my room is too close to hers for stealthy entry."

I laced my fingers through hers, delighting in the ease of the gesture. "What are we going to do today?"

Stephanie's smile was a little too mischievous for my liking. "Well, we could make breakfast, or go for a walk, or watch some TV . . . or, since I've already broken my own rule, make out on your bed."

"Sounds good." I pulled her towards me, kissed her. I'd kissed her so many times by then, but each time like the first. No diminishing returns to be had.

Stephanie climbed onto the bed, her arms finding their way around my neck. She licked my bottom lip, and I fell backwards, taking her with me and rolling over so that she was under me. I lifted my head long enough to smile at her before returning to my exploration of her mouth. She grasped the back of my neck, her fingers toying with my hair. Her other hand slid up my shirt, and I smiled against her mouth. She was already forgetting her own rules.

And then the door to my bedroom opened.


	18. Night 14-Part 2

_[a/n-last chapter! I can't believe it, really-since I started this story in July, I've rewritten so much of it that it's nothing like my original idea, and that includes the ending. I kind of had an issue with there being any sexual aspects(mainly kissing)in this story, and I know I've gotten some comments about it. I don't think there's a delicate way to write about this kind of relationship; the truth is that it is fundamentally damaging when it happens in real life. I just was curious to know what would posses someone to have such a relationship in the first place, especially when they seem to be normal, non-mentally-disturbed people. It turned out more like "longing" than "love"", but I hope it was good. My first draft was just a fun summer story . . . Anyway, after reading this, I hope you understand why I ended it the way that I did.]_

Night 14

I'll never forget that moment. The moment that Damian lifted his face from mine to stare, openly shocked, at the figure looming in the doorway. I felt him leave, then, wrenched away from me as surely as if Bruce had grabbed his arm and hauled him away. Damian scrambled to his feet. "Father."

He stood between Bruce and me, as if he could protect me. Ridiculous, but I'll never forget, either, the way his back looked. Strong and capable, as if he could take on his own father, the Batman himself. I was taken aback by how much Damian had grown in the past two weeks. He'd been a spoiled child, that Friday that I boiled him boxed mac n' cheese and he refused to get me the butter. He now looked like a young man.

I was not, however, to be outdone. I slid off of the bed and stood next to him, trying in vain to straighten my makeout-mussed hair and pull my shirt down over my low-slung jeans. I was painfully aware that the shirt was Damian's, but I hoped that Bruce wouldn't notice. "Bruce." I greeted him. "Um. Hi." I couldn't have sounded more idiotic if I tried. I inwardly winced, though I supposed that my standing in Bruce's eyes couldn't be any lower than it was in that moment. Behind him, Dick looked equal parts shocked and impressed. I wondered if he was thinking off all the times he had wished he could make out with his babysitter.

I almost snickered, thinking about how Damian just might give Dick a run for his money as the womanizer of the family, before remembering that this was a very serious, very much Steph-and-Dami-are-in-deep-trouble moment.

"You're back early." Damian said, calm as ever. I thought that maybe I was the only one who noticed the way his hands shook. I went to take one, but he pulled away and gave me a small shake of his head, barely perceptible, saying in his own way, _not now_. It amazed me that I could read it in his eyes, as easily as if he'd spoken aloud. When had Damian stopped being an enigma to me?

"We snuck aboard an illegal flight." Nightwing supplied. "We were under the impression that things back here were going bad-though, I guess we were wrong." He almost smirked, and I felt a flicker of hope. If we had Dick on our side, than Bruce's wrath would be less scary by half. His foster son had a way of diffusing the extremities of most emotions.

"Everything's fine. I-" Damian began, but Bruce cut him off, speaking for the first time.

There was a reason that everyone tried to mimic the Batman voice-it was impressive. Even in his civilian guise, Bruce's voice had layers and undertones to it that turned his deep bass into a full symphony orchestra that sang only of his rage and disappointment in both his youngest son and his supposed partner.

"You lied." His eyes, blue and hard, bore holes into Damian. He didn't even deign to look at me.

"I did. I wanted to be alone with Stephanie." Damian admitted. "But, Father-"

"That's enough." Bruce grabbed Damian's arm and dragged him, forcibly, out of the room. "Father-" Damian started again.

"Just shut up!" Bruce snapped. He looked at me, then, and it was awful. Mom used to tell me stories about Judgment Day, how everyone on earth will stand in front of God and answer for their crimes and sins. I was starting to really dread that day, but when Bruce looked at me, I almost thought that I'd rather have God cross-examining my life than Batman stare at me for one more second.

"I trusted you with my son." Bruce said, quietly, and then he and Damian were gone. I gulped, my eyes wide. I felt like I was about to throw up. I looked at Dick. "I screwed up." I told him, my voice like a little girl's.

He didn't look unsympathetic as he took me by the upper arm and led me out of the room. "Yeah. But you're going to make it good."

And now I'm here, sitting in the bed of Dick's truck, waiting for him and Bruce to finish arguing. Dick wants to hear our side of the story, let us reason our way out of trouble, and Bruce wants to send Damian away, far away, to somewhere where he'll never see me again.

In the end, Dick comes storming out of the house, gesturing for me to get into the truck's cab.

"What's going on? What's going to happen?" I ask, once I've buckled into the passenger seat. It feels weird to not be driving, to not be the one who's the responsible adult, but weirdly comfortable, too. Now that Dick's here, I won't have to struggle with everything by myself.

He leans his forehead on the steering wheel, taking a deep breath. "We're going away for a little bit, Steph. Taking a road trip, you and me, and we're going to sort some things out."

"And Damian?" I can't help but ask. He is, after all, the person my whole world revolves around. Kind of weird that it turned out that way, when fourteen days ago I could barely stand to be in the same room as him. The thing is, he's still the same arrogant, precocious, unreasonable and often incorrigible eleven-year-old-so I guess I'm the one who's changed.

Dick just shakes his head, starting the car. "Do yourself a favor, Stephanie. Don't think about Damian anymore." He doesn't look at me when he adds, "He's better off without you."

After the longest time, Dick slams the front door closed, and Bruce comes into the kitchen. I stop straining for a glance at Stephanie and look at my father expectantly, ready to deliver my case. But when I open my mouth, he cuts me off.

"Don't lie to me and say that was the only time you kissed her or that there was nothing going on." he says. "I saw the camera footage from the Manor's security. Furthermore, there's a charge to my credit card to one room in a bed and breakfast. Now, you can write that off as your little escapade tracking down your mother, but from what Mrs. Brown says, I doubt that's the whole story. Furthermore, I talked to both Kara and Colin, who spilled the beans about what you've been up to."

He gives me a hard look. "I'd be impressed by your scheme to get Dick out of town if I wasn't so furious about you and Stephanie."

I open my mouth again.

"And don't tell me there's nothing wrong with you having a relationship with her." Bruce correctly anticipates my next argument. "You're eleven years old. No matter how advanced your development is, you shouldn't be in a relationship with _anyone_."

"What are you going to do?" I challenge him. Bruce rests his hands on the back of the chair opposing mine. He looks resigned.

"Stephanie's going away for a while."

"What?!" I'm standing before I realize it, heading for the door, to chase after the truck, after her.

"So are you. I obviously can't trust either of you on your own."

"Stephanie is not your child! You can't ship her wherever you want!" I protest, my voice raising. I'm being unreasonable, and I know it, but missing her has already curled into my stomach, aching like a seeping wound.

"Dick will convince her of the . . . advisability of my course of action." Bruce says grimly. "And don't give me that look. I'm not your enemy, child. I'm trying to protect you."

I glare at him. "I will find her." I promise. "You can't keep me from her. And you definitely don't have to protect me from her."

Bruce stares down at his hands. "Maybe I'm protecting her from you." he says.

That stops me. "Steph doesn't need to be . . . I wouldn't . . ."

"Think about it." my father says. "She's a teenager now, sure, but in a few years? She'll be at an age where she wants to get married, maybe start a family-and you'll be just entering high school. You'll always be holding her back from where she needs to be in life. You can't close that kind of age gap with a growth spurt, Damian." He shrugs. "The simple truth is that you can't have her. The sooner the both of you realize that, the better. I'm just trying to help you two along."

I'd be mad at him, if he wasn't right. I sit down again. "And me?" I'm not going to waste any time thinking that, after this, I'll just get to go back to patrols and Pay-Per-View television.

Not that any of that matters without Stephanie.

"I think it's time that you go to a proper school. There's a nice one, in Vermont, where I went for quite a few years. It's an all-boys school, but there are some co-ed dances and other events where you'll be able to meet someone more . . . suitable." Bruce looks a little embarrassed, as if he doesn't really want to be making choices for his son but feels he has no other option. I guess he feels that he doesn't. I guess that's my fault.

"And what about Colin? My friend? And patrols, and being Robin-"

The look on Bruce's face shuts me down. "You have the earn the right to be Robin." he says. "You took it, Damian-and now you've lost it. As for Colin, you have a cell phone."

I'm not Robin.

I'm not Robin.

I'm not Robin.

I knew that I wouldn't be Robin forever-it was kind of a given-but I always thought it would be because I was trading wings for a mantle. Not because I was being _grounded_.

I don't cry-crying's for babies-but inside, I'm screaming. Without Stephanie and without Robin, I don't even know who I am.

And as I look at Bruce's face, I see that that's exactly what he was afraid of, and what he's trying to save me from.

He doesn't want me to be like him.

I've fought for Stephanie, these past weeks; I've changed myself and twisted through the obstacles she put up and I _earned_, to use Bruce's words, the right to be with her. But that one look from my father tells me that none of that matters.

For the first time, I surrender without a fight.

_[a/n-Last notes-Stephanie's b-day is in '92, and Damian's is(tentatively) '99. I didn't think to find this out until the end of the story and so made him eleven in the beginning(I couldn't tell you why). That makes Stephanie eighteen-now I wish I could do it over again and make him a little older . . . ^.^ I didn't realize they were breaking any laws. Their birthdays are(again, tentatively)in the same month; I thought that was kind of cool. Anyway, thanks for reading!]_


End file.
